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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 <a href="http://www.eogn.com">http://www.eogn.com</a>.<br>
<h2><small>June 27, 2004</small></h2>
<h2><small>New Ancestry.com and ProQuest.com Partnership</small></h2>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<h2><small>July 13, 2004</small></h2>
<h3>ProQuest and Ancestry.com Agreement Announced</h3>
<p>The following is an announcement from ProQuest, the company that
produces HeritageQuest Online:</p>
<blockquote>To All,
<p>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.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Three key product improvements in the Ancestry Library
Edition will make it more valuable than the current AncestryPlus
database:
<p>1. New Interface. The user interface is redesigned for easier<br>
navigation for library patrons. The look is cleaner, more appealing,
and more intuitive for users.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.proquest.com/division/pr/04/20040628B.shtml">http://www.proquest.com/division/pr/04/20040628B.shtml</a></p>
<p>For more information, please contact your ProQuest sales
representative, the ProQuest sales information staff at (800) 521-0600
ext. 3344, or myself.</p>
<p>Best regards,</p>
<p>Chris Cowan<br>
Vice President, Publishing<br>
ProQuest Information and Learning</p>
</blockquote>
<em></em>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Carolyn Scott
Auburn, WA
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:ckscott3132@comcast.net">mailto:ckscott3132@comcast.net</a></pre>
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