There are multiple theories surrounding the mysterious disappearance of iconic aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished in 1937 while attempting to be the first woman to fly around the world. Today, Ancestry.com has published a case file revealing some unique details into the investigation of what happened. The 73-page file consists of letters and telegrams sent in [...]

Notorious train robbers, mob bosses, “butter imposters” and financial schemers are among the infamous outlaws who appear in a unique collection of federal prison records we just added to Ancestry.com.
Provided by the National Archives at Atlanta, the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary Collection (1902-1921) spans two decades and consists of more than 14,000 inmate records documenting some [...]

It turns out the trend of keeping baby names ‘all in the family’ is more popular than you might think. We were curious to see how many parents turned to their family tree for inspiration when choosing a baby name, so we conducted an independent survey to find out. Check out what we learned:

Nearly half of all [...]

Today we are excited to announce the launch of our new “My Story” advertising campaign, which highlights five of our customers and their incredible family history discoveries. The campaign will run for at least the next 12 months, and features five 15, 30 and 60-second television ads. You can see the ads on cable networks such as [...]

Valentine Roses, Chocolate Cherry and Rose Bouquet may all sound like perfect gifts for that special someone this Valentine’s Day, but historical records found on our site show they were actually names of real people. Here’s just a sampling of the names our team uncovered:

Valentine Day (WWI Draft Card)
Mary A Valentine (1930 Census)
Cupid Hart (1870 [...]

In commemoration of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday, Ancestry.com has added five new databases to its Civil War Collection. One of the databases includes the Abraham Lincoln Papers from the Library of Congress containing more than 20,000 documents such as drafts of speeches, incoming and outgoing correspondence with the president, and printed material. The Abraham Lincoln [...]

Ancestry.com is excited to be a major sponsor of the 5th Annual St. George, Utah, Family History Expo!

When: February 27-28th, 2009, 8AM – 6PM
Where: The Dixie Center, located at 1835 Convention Center Drive, St. George, Utah 84790

The expo features two full days of classes taught by some of the nation’s top family history instructors. The [...]

Kenny Freestone, Trees Product Manager for Ancestry.com, recently chatted about Ancestry Member Trees with Lisa Louise Cook on the “Family History: Genealogy “Made Easy” podcast.
During the interview, Kenny offers his Top Five Tips for making the most of Ancestry Member Trees. You can listen to the podcast here.

Ancestry.com is excited to announce the completion of the first record collection indexed through the World Archives Project, its new community indexing program. Community contributors participating in the project indexed the nearly 60,000 records within the Wisconsin Mortality Schedules, 1850 – 1880. The Wisconsin Mortality Schedules collection was completed in the three months following the [...]

Recently, we released the Ancestry.com World Archives Project – our new community keying tool that gives you the opportunity to help create free indexes at your leisure. We would love to hear what our members and the community thinks of the idea and of the new tool. We’re interested in feedback from people who have used the tool, as [...]