In honor of Black History Month, we’ve expanded our collection of African-American family history records with two new collections: Freedman’s Marriage Records and Southern Claims Commission Records.
Freedman’s Marriage Records
From 1865 to 1868, plantation marriages of thousands of former slaves from 17 Southern states were legalized. Ancestry.com has digitized and made available online a collection of […]

Our new collection of California Voter Registrations unlock more than 30 million names of Californians who registered to vote between 1900 and 1944. The collection reveals the political preferences of California residents - including several celebrities and political figures - who voted during the first half of the 20th century.
In 1942, actor and future U.S. […]

In the spirit of the holiday season, we at Ancestry.com were curious to see how much Americans knew about their own family histories. A national survey we conducted revealed some surprising findings, such as:
- 83 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds are the most interested in learning their family history, compared to 35- to 54-year-olds at […]

Walt Disney. Babe Ruth. Tom Cruise’s great-grandparents. Our new collection of U.S. Passport Applications reveals the travels of several of America’s early-20th-century rich and famous. In total, the collection captures some 2.4 million Americans who traveled between 1795 and 1925, including vacationers and immigrants who often returned to their native countries to bring other family members back to America. The collection includes information on […]

The Generations Network, Inc., today announced that Spectrum Equity Investors will lead an investment of $300 million to purchase a majority interest in the company. Spectrum, a private equity firm based in Menlo Park and Boston, has been a shareholder in The Generations Network since 2003.
Read the full announcement here.

Today we publicly announced DNA Ancestry, one of our most exciting new ventures to date – offering DNA testing as a way to discover family members.

Today we are excited to announce the official launch of AncestryPressTM, our new self-publishing application. AncestryPress lets you create professionally printed, custom family history books for yourself or that can serve as gifts for other family members.

Welcome to the Ancestry Blog! We’ve created this Ancestry blog as the place to keep you connected with what’s going on at Ancestry.com. It’s a place to learn about new additions – our products, content, features and other services – as we develop them. Here you will read blog posts from the people who create […]