MyFamily.com
Encyclopedia
Ancestry.com Inc., formerly The Generations Network, is a publicly traded Internet company
based in Provo
, Utah, USA. The largest for-profit genealogy
company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical and historical record websites focused on the U.S. and nine foreign countries, develops and markets genealogical software, and offers a wide array of genealogical related services. In December 2010, the company provided access to more than 6 billion records and had 1.395 million paying subscribers.
In addition to its flagship site, Ancestry.com operates Genealogy.com, MyFamily.com, and Rootsweb.com, and owns Footnote.com, which provides images of historical records. Family Tree Maker software, developed and marketed by the company, is the largest selling genealogical software in the world.
Under its subsidiaries, Ancestry.com operates foreign sites that provide access to services and records specific to other countries in the languages of those countries. These include several countries in Europe (covered by Ancestry.com Europe S.à r.l.) as well as Australia, Canada, and China. According to the company's latest annual report, Spectrum Equity Investors
is a majority owner in the business.
) and Dan Taggart, two Brigham Young University
graduates, founded Infobases and began offering Latter-day Saints (LDS) publications on floppy disk
s. Allen's brother Curt and his brother-in-law Brad Pelo
had founded Folio Corporation
, where Paul Allen had worked in 1988. Infobases chose to use the Folio infobase technology which Allen was familiar with as the basis for their products.
The first products were floppy disks and compact disks sold from the back seat of their car. In 1994 Infobases was named among Inc.
magazine’s 500 fastest-growing companies. Their first offering on CD was the LDS Collectors Edition, released in April 1995, selling for $299.95, which was offered in an on-line version in August 1995.
magazine and genealogy books. Founded in 1983 by John Sittner as a genealogy newsletter, Ancestry magazine had been launched in January 1994. Western Standard Publishing's CEO was Joe Cannon, one of the principal owners of Geneva Steel
.
In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standard's interest in Ancestry, Inc. At the time, Brad Pelo was president and CEO of Infobases, and president of Western Standard. Less than six months earlier, he had been president of Folio Corporation, whose digital technology Infobases was using. In March 1997, Folio was sold to Open Market
for $45 million. The first public evidence of the change in ownership of Ancestry Magazine came with the July/August 1997 issue, which showed a newly reorganized Ancestry, Inc., as its publisher. That issue's masthead also included the first use of the Ancestry.com web address.
More growth for Infobases occurred in July 1997 when Ancestry, Inc. purchased Bookcraft, Inc., a publisher of books written by leaders and officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Infobases had published many of Bookcraft's books as part of its LDS Collector's Library. Pelo also announced that Ancestry's product line would be greatly expanded in both CDs and online. Alan Ashton, a longtime investor in Infobases, and founder of WordPerfect
, was its chairman of the board. Allen and Taggart began running Ancestry, Inc. independently from Infobases in July 1997, and began creating one of the largest online subscription-based genealogy database services.
In April 1999, to better focus on its Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com Internet businesses, Infobases sold the Bookcraft brand name and its catalog of print books to its major competitor in the LDS book market, Deseret Book
. Included in the sale were the rights to Infobases' LDS Collector's Library on CD. A year earlier, Deseret Book had released a competing product called GospeLink, and the two products were combined as a single product by Deseret Book.
The MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998, with additional free sites beginning in March 1999. The site generated one million registered users within its first 140 days. The company raised more than US$90 million in venture capital from investors and changed its name on November 17, 1999 from Ancestry.com, Inc., to MyFamily.com, Inc. Its three Internet genealogy sites were then called Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com, and FamilyHistory.com. Sales for 2002 were about US$62 million, and those for 2003 were US$99 million.
In March 2004, the company opened a new call center in Provo as a result of outgrowing their old call center in Orem
. The new call center accommodates about 700 agents at a time. Heritage Makers
was acquired by MyFamily.com in September 2005, and sold a year later in August 2006. The Ancestry.ca website was opened on January 24, 2006. In March 2006, MyFamily opened a new office in Bellevue, Washington
as part of the MyFamily business unit. Encounter Technologies was acquired in April 2006.
On December 19, 2006, the company changed its name to "The Generations Network." While the company had been offering free access to Ancestry.com at LDS Family History Centers
, that service was terminated on March 17, 2007 because of the inability to reach a mutually agreeable licensing agreement between TGN and the LDS Church. Recently, however, service was reinstated at several of the larger Family History Centers.
On July 6, 2009, the company changed its name to "Ancestry.com".
In 2010, Ancestry sold its book publishing assets to Turner Publishing
. In the same year, the company discontinued the publication of Ancestry Magazine
, after 25 years of publication and Genealogical Computing.
Ancestry.com became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ (symbol: ACOM) on November 5, 2009 with an initial public offering of 7.4 million shares priced at $13.50 per share underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Jefferies & Company, Piper Jaffray, and BMO Capital Markets.
The company continued its partnership with NBC
for the second season of the Who Do You Think You Are?
television series in 2011.
Ancestry.com expanded its location to San Francisco, CA in 2010. Ancestry.com started its office in San Francisco with brand new engineering, product and marketing teams. San Francisco office is geared towards developing some of Ancestry.com cutting edge technology and services. Some of their recent initiative include iPhone, iPad application development.
genealogy research website with over 5 billion records online. The majority of records are from the United States, though records are being added for other countries, such as Canada, the UK, and European countries. Some records are free for anyone to access, but the majority are accessible only by paid subscription.
On June 22, 2006, Ancestry.com completed the indexing
and scanning of all of the United States Federal Census
records
from 1790 through 1930.
Ancestry.com was nominated for a 2007 CODiE Award
in the "Best Online Consumer Information Service" category.
RootsWeb is a free genealogy community that uses online forums and mailing lists to help people research their family history. It was founded in 1993 by Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson as the Roots Surname List, and quickly grew from there. It is the oldest free community genealogy research site. RootsWeb was acquired by MyFamily.com in June 2000. Users can also upload GEDCOM
files of their information for others to search through the WorldConnect portion of the site. Trees uploaded to WorldConnect are searchable at both the RootsWeb and Ancestry websites.
Genealogy.com is a genealogy research website with some records not found on Ancestry.com, though the total number of records available is smaller. Genealogy.com was acquired from A&E Network
s by MyFamily.com in 2003.
LongLostPeople.com allows one to search public records
for living people in the United States.
Footnote.com, acquired in Fall 2010, has a large collection of documents dealing with the United States, including military records, city directories, and newspapers. Footnote has been rebranded as Fold3.
Ancestry.com set up a site in early 2006 called the Family Heritage Project which allowed customers to order a personalized book containing census images, photos and other information on up to four generations of a particular family. New orders were disallowed in December 2006, the book was made no longer available for order, and the site now redirects to the Ancestry.com store.
, FTM allows the researcher to keep track of information collected during research and to create reports, charts, and books containing that information. The software was originally developed by Kenneth Hess of Banner Blue Software, which was purchased by Brøderbund
in 1995. It passed through the hands of The Learning Company
, Mattel
, and others before coming under its current ownership.
A redesigned Family Tree Maker 2008 was released August 14, 2007. The 2009 version of the program corrected some of the errors and omissions of its predecessor, and introduced a few new features. Family Tree Maker 2010 claims to further enhance the radical re-design and be more powerful and feature-packed with faster navigation and quicker load times.
A version for the Mac was released in 1997, but due to low market demand was discontinued for over a decade. A new version of Family Tree Maker for Mac was finally released November 4, 2010.
Family Tree Maker Version 16 was awarded a CODiE Award
in the "Best Consumer Productivity Solution" category in 2006.
FTM Merger history
Dot-com company
A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com , is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website that uses the popular top-level domain, ".com" .While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with...
based in Provo
Provo, Utah
Provo is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Utah, located about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the county seat of Utah County and lies between the cities of Orem to the north and Springville to the south...
, Utah, USA. The largest for-profit genealogy
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical and historical record websites focused on the U.S. and nine foreign countries, develops and markets genealogical software, and offers a wide array of genealogical related services. In December 2010, the company provided access to more than 6 billion records and had 1.395 million paying subscribers.
In addition to its flagship site, Ancestry.com operates Genealogy.com, MyFamily.com, and Rootsweb.com, and owns Footnote.com, which provides images of historical records. Family Tree Maker software, developed and marketed by the company, is the largest selling genealogical software in the world.
Under its subsidiaries, Ancestry.com operates foreign sites that provide access to services and records specific to other countries in the languages of those countries. These include several countries in Europe (covered by Ancestry.com Europe S.à r.l.) as well as Australia, Canada, and China. According to the company's latest annual report, Spectrum Equity Investors
Spectrum Equity Investors
Spectrum Equity Investors is a Boston-based private equity and venture capital firm founded in 1994. The firm focuses on business services, entertainment, communications, information services, media, and related growth sectors. The firm currently has a capital base of approximately $4.7 billion...
is a majority owner in the business.
Infobases, Inc.
In 1990, Paul Allen (not to be confused with Microsoft cofounder Paul AllenPaul Allen
Paul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates...
) and Dan Taggart, two Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
graduates, founded Infobases and began offering Latter-day Saints (LDS) publications on floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s. Allen's brother Curt and his brother-in-law Brad Pelo
Brad Pelo
Brad Pelo is an American businessman, entrepreneur, and founder and chief executive officer of i.TV. Pelo has founded or been a member of the founding team at a number of companies, including Folio Corporation, Ancestry.com , and Nextpage....
had founded Folio Corporation
Folio Corporation
Folio Corporation was founded in 1987 by Curt Allen, and his brother-in-law Brad Pelo, and quickly gained recognition in helping other companies to publish content on local area networks, and on digital CD-ROMs for use on desktop computers. Allen and Pelo were both students at BYU; Allen was in...
, where Paul Allen had worked in 1988. Infobases chose to use the Folio infobase technology which Allen was familiar with as the basis for their products.
The first products were floppy disks and compact disks sold from the back seat of their car. In 1994 Infobases was named among Inc.
Inc. (magazine)
Inc. magazine, founded in 1979 and based in New York City, is a monthly publication focused on growing companies. The magazine publishes an annual list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., the "Inc...
magazine’s 500 fastest-growing companies. Their first offering on CD was the LDS Collectors Edition, released in April 1995, selling for $299.95, which was offered in an on-line version in August 1995.
Ancestry.com
On January 1, 1997, Infobases' parent company, Western Standard Publishing, purchased Ancestry, Inc., publisher of AncestryAncestry Magazine
Ancestry Magazine was a general interest genealogy magazine owned by Ancestry.com Operations Inc. The magazine received a 2009 Gold Eddie Award in the enthusiast category for its article, The Man Who Would Be King...
magazine and genealogy books. Founded in 1983 by John Sittner as a genealogy newsletter, Ancestry magazine had been launched in January 1994. Western Standard Publishing's CEO was Joe Cannon, one of the principal owners of Geneva Steel
Geneva Steel
Geneva Steel was a steel mill located in Vineyard, Utah, founded during World War II to enhance national steel output. It operated from December 1944 to November 2001...
.
In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standard's interest in Ancestry, Inc. At the time, Brad Pelo was president and CEO of Infobases, and president of Western Standard. Less than six months earlier, he had been president of Folio Corporation, whose digital technology Infobases was using. In March 1997, Folio was sold to Open Market
Open market
The term open market is used generally to refer to a situation close to free trade and in a more specific technical sense to interbank trade in securities.-Use of the term in economic theory:...
for $45 million. The first public evidence of the change in ownership of Ancestry Magazine came with the July/August 1997 issue, which showed a newly reorganized Ancestry, Inc., as its publisher. That issue's masthead also included the first use of the Ancestry.com web address.
More growth for Infobases occurred in July 1997 when Ancestry, Inc. purchased Bookcraft, Inc., a publisher of books written by leaders and officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Infobases had published many of Bookcraft's books as part of its LDS Collector's Library. Pelo also announced that Ancestry's product line would be greatly expanded in both CDs and online. Alan Ashton, a longtime investor in Infobases, and founder of WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
, was its chairman of the board. Allen and Taggart began running Ancestry, Inc. independently from Infobases in July 1997, and began creating one of the largest online subscription-based genealogy database services.
In April 1999, to better focus on its Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com Internet businesses, Infobases sold the Bookcraft brand name and its catalog of print books to its major competitor in the LDS book market, Deseret Book
Deseret Book
Deseret Book is the largest Latter-day Saint book publisher and also owns a chain of LDS bookstores in the western United States. Over 150 people work in its Salt Lake City headquarters...
. Included in the sale were the rights to Infobases' LDS Collector's Library on CD. A year earlier, Deseret Book had released a competing product called GospeLink, and the two products were combined as a single product by Deseret Book.
The MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998, with additional free sites beginning in March 1999. The site generated one million registered users within its first 140 days. The company raised more than US$90 million in venture capital from investors and changed its name on November 17, 1999 from Ancestry.com, Inc., to MyFamily.com, Inc. Its three Internet genealogy sites were then called Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com, and FamilyHistory.com. Sales for 2002 were about US$62 million, and those for 2003 were US$99 million.
In March 2004, the company opened a new call center in Provo as a result of outgrowing their old call center in Orem
Orem, Utah
Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the north-central part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is about south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Utah and...
. The new call center accommodates about 700 agents at a time. Heritage Makers
Heritage Makers
Heritage Makers is a party-plan direct selling company—similar to Pampered Chef or Tupperware—that sells personalized published Storybooks. The business was formed in 2004, was bought by MyFamily.com in September 2005, and then sold to its management team in August 2006. The business is based in...
was acquired by MyFamily.com in September 2005, and sold a year later in August 2006. The Ancestry.ca website was opened on January 24, 2006. In March 2006, MyFamily opened a new office in Bellevue, Washington
Bellevue, Washington
Bellevue is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Long known as a suburb or satellite city of Seattle, it is now categorized as an edge city or a boomburb. The population was 122,363 at the 2010 census.Downtown Bellevue is...
as part of the MyFamily business unit. Encounter Technologies was acquired in April 2006.
On December 19, 2006, the company changed its name to "The Generations Network." While the company had been offering free access to Ancestry.com at LDS Family History Centers
Family History Center (LDS Church)
Family History Centers are units of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...
, that service was terminated on March 17, 2007 because of the inability to reach a mutually agreeable licensing agreement between TGN and the LDS Church. Recently, however, service was reinstated at several of the larger Family History Centers.
On July 6, 2009, the company changed its name to "Ancestry.com".
In 2010, Ancestry sold its book publishing assets to Turner Publishing
Turner Publishing Company
Turner Publishing Company is an American independent book publisher based in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1984, it specializes in regional and local history, historic photo books, Southern United States fiction and literature, general non-fiction, children's literature, and custom...
. In the same year, the company discontinued the publication of Ancestry Magazine
Ancestry Magazine
Ancestry Magazine was a general interest genealogy magazine owned by Ancestry.com Operations Inc. The magazine received a 2009 Gold Eddie Award in the enthusiast category for its article, The Man Who Would Be King...
, after 25 years of publication and Genealogical Computing.
Ancestry.com became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ (symbol: ACOM) on November 5, 2009 with an initial public offering of 7.4 million shares priced at $13.50 per share underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Jefferies & Company, Piper Jaffray, and BMO Capital Markets.
The company continued its partnership with NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
for the second season of the Who Do You Think You Are?
Who Do You Think You Are? (U.S. TV series)
Who Do You Think You Are? is an American genealogy documentary series that premiered on NBC on March 5, 2010. The show is an adaptation of the British series of the same name, aired by the BBC. Each week a celebrity goes on a journey to trace his or her family tree. Lisa Kudrow is executive...
television series in 2011.
Ancestry.com expanded its location to San Francisco, CA in 2010. Ancestry.com started its office in San Francisco with brand new engineering, product and marketing teams. San Francisco office is geared towards developing some of Ancestry.com cutting edge technology and services. Some of their recent initiative include iPhone, iPad application development.
Products and services
Ancestry.com is a subscription-basedSubscription business model
The subscription business model is a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service. The model was pioneered by magazines and newspapers, but is now used by many businesses and websites....
genealogy research website with over 5 billion records online. The majority of records are from the United States, though records are being added for other countries, such as Canada, the UK, and European countries. Some records are free for anyone to access, but the majority are accessible only by paid subscription.
On June 22, 2006, Ancestry.com completed the indexing
Index (database)
A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of slower writes and increased storage space...
and scanning of all of the United States Federal Census
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...
records
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
from 1790 through 1930.
Ancestry.com was nominated for a 2007 CODiE Award
Codie awards
The CODiE awards are annual awards issued by the Software and Information Industry Association for excellence in software development within the software industry....
in the "Best Online Consumer Information Service" category.
Other sites
MyFamily.com allows members to create private family or group websites. Customization is limited. The 1998 version is still available, but no further enhancements are planned. After three years of a beta release 2.0, it is currently running the first non-beta release, "MyFamily.com 2.5.3". However, since the architecture was changed so radically from 2.0 to 2.5, internally at MyFamily all references to v2.5 are actually being called v3.0. Users of version 3.0 (aka 2.5) have last seen an update to the code in February 2010, so since that date both v1.0 and v3.0 have been 'frozen'. Migration services from v1.0 to v3.0 were stopped March 21, 2010, with no reason given. Many features of the original version of the site have not yet been ported to this release, although new features have been introduced, such as video support, blog support, social group interface, and unlimited storage. Also, in May 2010, MyFamily closed their Bellevue Washington development office, effectively letting their entire staff go since the offer to move to Provo Utah was not taken up by anyone. Since the loss of the Washington office, no new features have been added nor have any current problems/bugs been resolved. As of July 2010, free sites on v3.0 were discontinued.RootsWeb is a free genealogy community that uses online forums and mailing lists to help people research their family history. It was founded in 1993 by Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson as the Roots Surname List, and quickly grew from there. It is the oldest free community genealogy research site. RootsWeb was acquired by MyFamily.com in June 2000. Users can also upload GEDCOM
GEDCOM
GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a proprietary and open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software...
files of their information for others to search through the WorldConnect portion of the site. Trees uploaded to WorldConnect are searchable at both the RootsWeb and Ancestry websites.
Genealogy.com is a genealogy research website with some records not found on Ancestry.com, though the total number of records available is smaller. Genealogy.com was acquired from A&E Network
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
s by MyFamily.com in 2003.
LongLostPeople.com allows one to search public records
Public records
Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential. For example, in California, when a couple fills out a marriage license application, they have the option of checking the box as to whether the marriage is "confidential" or "Public"...
for living people in the United States.
Footnote.com, acquired in Fall 2010, has a large collection of documents dealing with the United States, including military records, city directories, and newspapers. Footnote has been rebranded as Fold3.
Ancestry.com set up a site in early 2006 called the Family Heritage Project which allowed customers to order a personalized book containing census images, photos and other information on up to four generations of a particular family. New orders were disallowed in December 2006, the book was made no longer available for order, and the site now redirects to the Ancestry.com store.
Family Tree Maker
Family Tree Maker (FTM) is advertised as "the #1 selling genealogy software". As with other genealogy softwareGenealogy software
Genealogy software is computer software used to record, organize, and publish genealogical data. At a minimum, genealogy software collects the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships of individuals to their parents, spouses, and children...
, FTM allows the researcher to keep track of information collected during research and to create reports, charts, and books containing that information. The software was originally developed by Kenneth Hess of Banner Blue Software, which was purchased by Brøderbund
Brøderbund
Brøderbund Software, Inc. was an American maker of computer games, educational software and The Print Shop productivity tools. It was best known as the original creator and publisher of the popular Carmen Sandiego games. The company was founded in Eugene, Oregon, but moved to San Rafael,...
in 1995. It passed through the hands of The Learning Company
The Learning Company
The Learning Company is an American educational software company, founded in 1980. It produced a grade-based system similar to Knowledge Adventure's JumpStart series. The products for preschoolers through second graders feature Reader Rabbit, and software for more advanced students features The...
, Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
, and others before coming under its current ownership.
A redesigned Family Tree Maker 2008 was released August 14, 2007. The 2009 version of the program corrected some of the errors and omissions of its predecessor, and introduced a few new features. Family Tree Maker 2010 claims to further enhance the radical re-design and be more powerful and feature-packed with faster navigation and quicker load times.
A version for the Mac was released in 1997, but due to low market demand was discontinued for over a decade. A new version of Family Tree Maker for Mac was finally released November 4, 2010.
Family Tree Maker Version 16 was awarded a CODiE Award
Codie awards
The CODiE awards are annual awards issued by the Software and Information Industry Association for excellence in software development within the software industry....
in the "Best Consumer Productivity Solution" category in 2006.
FTM version history
Please press show for more information on past versions.| Meaning | |
|---|---|
| Red | Not supported |
| Yellow | Still supported (Update to the last patch for that version) |
| Green | Current version |
| Version | Release date | Released by | Edition/s | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 1989 | Banner Blue Software | DOS | Supplied on 3.5 and 5.25 floppy disks. Data file used .FTM as a file extension on DOS. No GEDCOM GEDCOM GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a proprietary and open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software... support. |
| 1.01 | 1990 | Banner Blue Software | DOS | No GEDCOM GEDCOM GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a proprietary and open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software... support. |
| 2.0 | Jan 1994 | Banner Blue Software | Windows 3.1 / DOS | Data file used .FTW as a file extension on Windows. Supplied on two 3½ inch floppy disks. Supported GEDCOM GEDCOM GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a proprietary and open de facto specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software... import/export. |
| 2.?? | Oct 1994 | Banner Blue Software | Windows 3.1 / DOS | Second version (patch?) |
| 3.0 | 24 Oct 1995 | Brøderbund Software | Windows 3.1 & 95 (16 bit) / DOS | Supplied on three floppy disks. 16 bit application compatible with Windows 95. DOS version shipped with the DEU (Data Exchange Utility) |
| 3.01 | February 1996 | Brøderbund Software | Windows 3.1 & 95 (16 bit & 32 bit) / DOS | Beginning with this version every copy of Family Tree Maker for Windows came with both a Windows 95 (32-bit) and Windows 3.1x (16-bit) version. |
| 3.02 | Oct 1995 | Brøderbund Software | Windows 32 bit | |
| 3.02 Mac | ?1997 | Brøderbund Software | Macintosh (PowerPC processor only) | Marketed as Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition II for Macintosh. |
| 3.4 | November 1996 | Brøderbund Software | Windows 3.1 & 95 (16 bit & 32 bit) / DOS | |
| 4.0 | September 1996 | Brøderbund Software | Windows 3.1 & 95 (16 bit & 32 bit) / DOS | First release on a CD-ROM. |
| 4.0a | ? | Brøderbund Software | Windows | |
| 4.0b | ? | Brøderbund Software | Windows | |
| 4.4 | ? | Brøderbund Software | Windows | |
| 4.4 File Fixer Patch | ? | Brøderbund Software | Windows | |
| 5.0 | (before) August 1998 | The Learning Company | Windows | |
| 5.0a (Patch) | ? | The Learning Company | Windows | |
| 5.0b | ? | The Learning Company | Windows | |
| 6.0 | after may 1999 | The Learning Company (Mattel Incorporated) | Windows | |
| 6.0a (Index Optimization Update) | ? | The Learning Company (Mattel Incorporated) | Windows | |
| 7.0 | October 1999 | The Learning Company (Mattel Incorporated) | Windows | |
| 7.5 | April 2000 | Genealogy.com | Windows | |
| 8.0 | October 2000 | Genealogy.com | Windows | |
| 9.0 | October 2001 | Genealogy.com | Windows | |
| 9.0 (patch after release) | October 30, 2001 | Genealogy.com | Windows | |
| 10.0 | September 2002 | Genealogy.com | Windows | |
| 11.0 | September 2003 | MyFamily.com | Windows | |
| 2005 | August 2004 | MyFamily.com | Windows | |
| 2006 | September 12, 2005 | MyFamily.com | Windows | |
| 2006 Patch | ? | MyFamily.com | Windows | |
| 16 | September 2006 | MyFamily.com | Windows | |
| 2008 | August 14, 2007 | Ancestry.com | Windows | Returned to using the .FTM extension for windows datafiles. |
| 2008 Service Pack 1 | ? | Ancestry.com | Windows | |
| 2008 Service Pack 2 | ? | Ancestry.com | Windows | |
| 2008 Service Pack 3 (17.0.0.965) | ? | Ancestry.com | Windows | |
| 2009 | August 28, 2008 | The Generations Network | Windows | |
| 2009 Patch 18A (18.0.0.94) | ? | The Generations Network | Windows | |
| 2009 Patch 18B (18.0.0.95) | ? | The Generations Network | Windows | |
| 2009 Patch 18C (18.0.0.305) | ? | The Generations Network | Windows | |
| 2009 Patch 18D (18.0.0.307) | ? | The Generations Network | Windows | |
| 2010 | August 19, 2009 | Ancestry.com | Windows Vista & XP SP2 | |
| 2010 Service Pack 1 (19.0.0.206) | ? | Ancestry.com | Windows 7 & Vista & XP SP2 | |
| 2011 | August 31, 2010 | Ancestry.com | Windows 7 & Vista & XP SP2 | |
| 2011 Service Pack 1 (20.0.0.376) | ? | Ancestry.com | Windows 7 & Vista & XP SP2 | |
| 2010 Mac | November 4, 2010 | Ancestry.com | Mac OSX 10.5 or later (Intel-based Mac) | Marketed as Family Tree Maker for Mac. Supplied on 2 x CD-ROM |
| 2010 Mac (Update 19.2.0.241) | 02/01/2011 | Ancestry.com | Mac OSX 10.5 or later (Intel-based Mac) | |
| 2012 | September 29, 2011 | Ancestry.com | Windows 7 & Vista & XP SP2 |
FTM Merger history
- 1984 Banner Blue Software founded by Ken Hess, As the founder and president of Banner Blue Software from 1984 to 1996, I sold over two million copies of Family Tree Maker
- May 1997 Brøderbund Software acquired Parsons Technology from Intuit (which included the marketing rights to Family Origins for Windows
- August 1998 Brøderbund Software acquired by The Learning Company (which included Family Tree Creator through an acquisition of Mindscape/IMSI. v5 Published
- Late 1998 The Learning Company acquired Palladium Interactive (which included Ultimate Family Tree).
- May 1999 The Learning Company was acquired by Mattel Incorporated "Barbie").v6 Published
- November 1999 A&E Television Networks, Hearst Interactive Media, Mattel, and private equity firms form Genealogy.com, LLC April 2000 v7.5 Published.
- February 2001 A&E TV acquired Genealogy.com
- Late 2001 Genealogy.com acquired the GenForum message board site, which it had been hosting for a few years
- June 2002 Genealogy.com acquired Generations PC product line from Sierra Home
- April 2003 Genealogy.com acquired by MyFamily.com
- December 2006 My Family.com Inc changes its name to The Generations Network
Past products
Past genealogy programs.- Family Origins
- Generations Family Tree (Originally called Reunion for WindowsReunion (genealogy software)Reunion is genealogy software made by Leister Productions, Inc., a privately held firm established by Frank Leister in 1984 located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The company operates as a genealogy software developer exclusively for the Mac OS. Reunion was initially a Macintosh application,...
) - Ultimate Family Tree (UFT)
- ROOTS software series by CommSoft was one of the first publishers of series of genealogy softwareGenealogy softwareGenealogy software is computer software used to record, organize, and publish genealogical data. At a minimum, genealogy software collects the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships of individuals to their parents, spouses, and children...
programs, created in the 1980's, and available until 1997. Commsoft released the following, ROOTS89 for the Heath H-8HDOSHDOS is an early microcomputer operating system, originally written for the Heathkit H8 computer system and later also available for the Heath H89 and Zenith Z-89 computers...
series of personal computers, ROOTS/M for the CP/MCP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system, ROOTS II for MS-DOSMS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, followed by ROOTS III and ROOTS IV. The company also released ROOTS V for Windows along with Visual ROOTS for Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
.
External links
- Ancestry.com corporate site
- RootsWeb, a free genealogy website