An Update from Ancestry's CEO
To our community, The last several weeks have been an emotional journey. As we continue to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, I am continually inspired by all the communities, organizations and frontline heroes coming together to help those in need. We remain forever grateful to the healthcare workers fighting the pandemic and the essential workers allowing us to stay at home and stay safe. Last month, I shared a summary of what Ancestry® is doing to support our community, recognizing that it was just the beginning. A lot has transpired in the last few weeks and I want to personally thank each and every one of you for sharing feedback and ideas for how Ancestry can help during this time. We have been working to leverage our content, educational resources and scientific expertise to deliver support to our customers and the community at large.
- Science for Good: We are committed to doing everything we can to help with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our efforts include working with independent laboratories to determine if our saliva collection devices are useful for testing for COVID-19. We are also supporting the global research community in the quest to more broadly understand COVID-19 with a study exploring potential genetic cues in our individual responses to the virus. I want to thank our community for your participation in this research. Your immediate willingness to partner with us on this project has the power to make a real difference in the global fight against COVID-19.
- Building Connections: In this time of social distancing, we all have the opportunity to take a deeper look into our family history. We have accelerated our output of records and over the past 6 weeks have added more than 79 million new records to our site. Earlier this month, we unveiled 75 new AncestryDNA® communities, enabling members to unlock new discoveries and share connections with families and loved ones.
- Education at Home: Ancestry continues to offer free at-home educational resources including its AncestryK12 lesson plans and free access to records from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, making it easy for people and students to explore their own family history stories from home. To support our family history community during the current challenging climate, we also are hosting education sessions with top family history researchers on our social media channels and Ancestry Academy.
- We Remember®: We know that nothing will ever replace gathering with loved ones to honor someone's passing, but in a time where travel and being together is prohibited, We Remember is a free resource to conduct online services and a place where people can create an online memorial page to collect and share memories of those loved and lost.
Across the globe, people are doing their part to keep business moving as best we can, keep children educated and help fight this pandemic. Our commitment to our family history community is unwavering and even while working remotely and in unusual conditions, I'm so proud of the ongoing efforts of the Ancestry team to bring people together, while apart. Our hearts go out to those affected by COVID-19. We will get through this as a global family.Margo GeorgiadisPresident & CEOAncestry