TGN history

The Generations Network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1996, Infobases invested in Ancestry, a print publishing company founded in 1983, later purchasing the company outright from founder John Sittner. Paul Allen (not the Microsoft co-founder) and Dan Taggart began running Ancestry independently from Infobases in July 1997, and began creating one of the largest online subscription-based genealogy database services.^[6] The company changed its name to "MyFamily.com" in November 1999 since its mission included both genealogy and connecting families to each other.

The MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998 with free sites beginning in March 1999,^[7] obtaining 1 million registered users within its first 140 days.^[6] The company raised more than US$90 million in venture capital from investors including Intel, CMGI, AOL, Kodak, Compaq, Sorenson, Esnet, Vspring and Tango Partners.^[6] Sales for 2002 were about US$62 million, and those for 2003 were US$99 million.^[8]

In March 2004, the company opened a new call center in Provo due to outgrowing their old call center in Orem. The new call center can accommodate approximately 700 agents at one time.^[9] Heritage Makers was acquired in September 2005,^[10] and sold a year later in August 2006.^{[citation needed]} The Ancestry.ca website was opened on January 24, 2006.^[11] In March 2006, MyFamily opened a new office in Bellevue, Washington as part of the MyFamily business unit.^[12] Encounter Technologies was acquired in April 2006.^[13]

The company changed its name to "The Generations Network" on December 19, 2006.^[14] While the company formerly offered access to Ancestry.com free at any LDS Family History Center, that service was terminated on March 17, 2007 because of the inability to reach a mutually-agreeable licensing agreement between TGN and the LDS Church. Recently, however, service was reinstated at several of the larger Family History Centers.^[15]

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