The Bottom Line (Original air Date: July 8, 2014) – Utah-based Ancestry.com is the world’s largest online family history resource. Since we first aired our interview with Ancestry.com’s CEO Tim Sullivan, the company has acquired significant investments from Silver Lake and GIC, making for a total valuation of $2.6 billion. The company also opened new headquartes in Lehi, Utah, and continues to maintain the world’s largest consumer genomics database with samples from from than 2 million people.
In this interview from 2014, Sullivan talks about Ancestry.com’s DNA service that helps people learn their ethnic makeup and connects them to their deep genealogical past. He also explains how Ancestry.com has tried to make family history research easier while not alienating serious genealogy researchers. Sullivan shares his journey from the University of North Carolina with a Morehead Scholarship and his early interest in documentary film-making. He later worked for Disney’s home video division, then for Disney in Hong Kong, and later transitioned to Ticketmaster-City Search. Sullivan talks about Ancestry.com’s 2013 $60 million partnership with the LDS Church to bring over one billion historical documents online.
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7 Comments
Please correct “Ancestory” to “Ancestry” in the body of the text . . . .
Ross, you got it right twice and then decided to change the name of the company. ??? There’s no ‘o’ in Ancestry.
LOL! I’m sure it had it’s purpose. Ances-story – he combined the two. It was telling our ANCESTORS STORY. It was catchy at the time I suppose. Haha…. I liked Ancestory better……..either way I am still an addict of genealogy.
And while you are at it, check you WYSIWYG editor and remove the misspelling.
Good lord is it really that much of a problem when there is something mispelled that it is all the comments can be made on? I love the site, it has helped me get very far in my searching for my family history. Please keep up the good work you are doing. Although I will say with that kind of an income it would really be possible for you to do a little less for the subscription of it. I understand you have bills to pay and employees. I just think you would get more people that would join and you wouldn’t lose any income.
We have asked every person we come in contact from ancestry.com to supply us the numbers associated with the matches. This is essential to remove brickwalls and to identify birth families for adoptees, the deserted and amnesia victims. With the numbers we can see how the relationship really works. Due to endogamous relationships we have actually found Ancestry predicted third cousins who have turned out to be 8th – 10th cousins. Also in your system a cousin can be cousin can also be that level plus once twice or three times removed. Also remember that there are many people without trees (6 million adoptees as an example) who could use your service, but cannot without numbers. Please get with the industry and supply the numbers so we do not have to go to a competitor to get them.
So far the answer is silence.
Suggest Ancestry work on customer service a lot. After last year’s inability to access over 3 1/2 months of a 6 month World Explorer paid subscription and Ancestry somehow billing me for someone else’ AncestryDNA several days ago, Ancestry owes me over $100 and the response from Ancestry CSRs has been dismal. Took another 3 1/2 months of unpaid service before I could access Ancestry on a regular basis. Would appreciate someone responding to my requests. Posted on Ancestry’s Facebook page and they gave me an e-mail. Two e-mails sent and no response. Posted on one of your employee’s Facebook walls about the lost 3 1/2 months and her response was to delete my question without any kind of offer to help. Comments in Ancestry’s official Facebook group were met with silence from Ancestry employees, but others reported having the same or worse issues.
I applaud the goal of offering DNA kits as low as possible and my suggestion would be to continue the free kits for new subscribers deal offered to some new subscribers.