[or-roots] Re: Heritage Quest/Ancestry discussion. .. long!

[Carolyn Scott]

The following articles are from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter 
and is copyright 2005 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here 
with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is 
available at http://www.eogn.com.


    June 27, 2004


    New Ancestry.com and ProQuest.com Partnership

The online newsgroups have been buzzing all week, and on Friday it 
became official: one of the strongest rivalries in the genealogy 
business world has been between ProQuest and MyFamily.com, operators of 
Ancestry.com, but now the two are becoming business partners.

ProQuest is a major supplier of high-quality census images and digitized 
copies of thousands of genealogy books. The same company also provides 
the online version of the powerful PERSI genealogy database. ProQuest 
traditionally has sold services only to libraries. To access ProQuest's 
online databases of U.S. Census records, digitized books, and the PERSI 
database, most genealogists had to visit a library that paid two 
thousand dollars per year or more to subscribe to the service. A few 
libraries offer in-home access to ProQuest as well.

Ancestry.com has been offering a competitive service to libraries, 
called Ancestry Plus, which really was based upon the company reselling 
the services of Thomson Gale, one of ProQuest's biggest competitors. 
That partnership apparently soured in recent months. Ancestry.com is now 
dropping the Ancestry Plus product.

Reportedly, Ancestry.com and ProQuest now have signed a two-way 
agreement: ProQuest will market the Ancestry online products to the 
library market under a service named Ancestry Library Edition. In 
return, ProQuest will supply 20,000+ genealogy and local history books 
to Ancestry.com's genealogy customers. How Ancestry.com will price and 
position these new online books has not yet been announced.

It is interesting that these two companies are the only ones who supply 
all or most all of U.S. Census records online. Both have invested 
hundreds of thousands of dollars in creating competitive online 
databases of census records. It is also interesting that ProQuest's 
census images are generally more readable than Ancestry.com's images of 
the same records. I had hoped that Ancestry.com would also resell 
ProQuests's census images; however, the announcement makes no mention of 
that, and I suspect that each will continue to sell its own version of 
census records separately.


    July 13, 2004


      ProQuest and Ancestry.com Agreement Announced

The following is an announcement from ProQuest, the company that 
produces HeritageQuest Online:

    To All,

    We're pleased to announce that ProQuest and MyFamily.com are working
    together to distribute a new genealogy database, Ancestry Library
    Edition. It will replace and supercede AncestryPlus from Gale Group.

    Three key product improvements in the Ancestry Library Edition will
    make it more valuable than the current AncestryPlus database:

    1. New Interface. The user interface is redesigned for easier
    navigation for library patrons. The look is cleaner, more appealing,
    and more intuitive for users.

    2. Added Content. In addition to the vast majority of data current
    available in AncestryPlus -- the U.S. Census Collection indexes and
    images, U.S. Data Collection, and the UK and Ireland Collection --
    MyFamily.com will be adding a new Immigration Collection exclusively
    for Ancestry Library Edition.

    3. Unlimited Simultaneous User Access. Rather than being limited by
    the number of simultaneous users, Ancestry Library Edition will be
    available anywhere within the library.

    And as an added value with the launch of Ancestry Library Edition,
    libraries can subscribe to this new database for the same price as
    their current AncestryPlus price. Ancestry Library Edition will
    become available August 30, 2004.

    As a reminder, MyFamily.com will only honor subscription access for
    AncestryPlus through August 30, 2005. After that date, AncestryPlus
    will not exist. To ensure access to a full-year subscription,
    libraries will want to subscribe to Ancestry Library Edition. You
    can also read the official press release by visiting
    http://www.proquest.com/division/pr/04/20040628B.shtml

    For more information, please contact your ProQuest sales
    representative, the ProQuest sales information staff at (800)
    521-0600 ext. 3344, or myself.

    Best regards,

    Chris Cowan
    Vice President, Publishing
    ProQuest Information and Learning

-- 
Carolyn Scott
Auburn, WA
mailto:ckscott3132 at comcast.net

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