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Wednesday, June 18, 2014

findmypast.com buys Origins.net

The relentless acquisition of online websites by the large genealogy companies continues with the announcement of Findmypast.co.uk, the leading British family history company, purchase of Origins.net, one of the early pioneers of online records. The press release dated 17 June 2014 was widely reported by the genealogy bloggers online. Included in the press release was the following statement:
Origins will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Findmypast. Ian Galbraith, founder of Origins, will continue to work with Findmypast on collection development. The extensive record sets from Origins will be brought into Findmypast over the next few months and the Origins website will continue to run as usual.
This is interesting from the standpoint of the agreement between FamilySearch.org and findmypast.com.  Will the newly added records be available to the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as part of the ongoing agreement? Will they also be included in the free access to patrons of the Family History Centers around the world? Presently, the members of the Church and anyone visiting a Family History Center can access findmypast.com for free. However, this access does not extend to other D.C. Thomson websites such as The British Newspaper Archive. This is the same as the situation with Ancestry.com which is also free to members and to patrons at Family History Centers. The agreement does not extend the free access members to Ancestry.com's other websites such as Fold3.com. But Fold3.com is available in Family History Centers.

It sounds like to me, as there are further acquisitions, the FamilySearch negotiators will be kept very busy and the patrons at the Family History Centers may be the beneficiaries of some of these acquisitions.

Please take the time to read the comments.

6 comments:

  1. I recently got my "free" access to FindMyPast and was very disappointed. It turns out we have free access to FindMyPast's U.S. and Canada collection, but not to their UK collection. If you want access to the UK collection you have to pay the regular price of $19.95 per month. This is pretty disappointing since the primary reason for subscribing to FindMyPast is their UK collection. The records in their U.S. and Canada collection are widely available elsewhere. Kind of makes you wonder who got the best end of this deal!

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    1. It is my understanding that the findmypast.com database has all of the same records as the UK database or will have the same shortly.

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    2. Here's an email we got from the "FindMyPast Support Team:"

      Thank you for your email.

      The Family Search subscription does not cover all of our available records I am afraid.

      I have copied a list of record sets which are currently not included in the Family Search subscription below:

      Newspaper collections
      India Office Records
      Electoral Rolls
      Royal Marine Medal Roll 1914-1920
      Royal Naval Division 1914-1919
      Royal Naval Officers Medal Roll 1914-1920
      UK Parish Registers 1538-1911
      Army Roll of Honour 1939-1945
      British PoW Officers Aug 1914 - Nov 1918
      De Ruvigny Scrolls
      De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour 1914-1918
      Distinguished Conduct Medal citations 1914-1920
      Ireland's Memorial Records of the Great War
      List and Careers of Officers of the Indian Army 1760 to 1837 Bengal, Madras and Bombay Presidencies.
      National Roll of The Great War
      National Roll Scrolls
      Naval Casualties 1914-1919
      WW2 PoWs - officers of Empire
      WW2 PoWs - British Navy & Air Force officers
      Soldiers Died in The Great War
      The Great War London Gazettes
      Waterloo Medal Roll 1815
      Waterloo Scrolls
      WW1 Scrolls
      WW2 PoWs - British Army held in Gmn territories
      WW2 Scrolls
      Silver War Badge rolls
      Victoria Cross Recipients 1857-2007
      Dorset Marriage Register
      Surrey Marriage Register
      Griffith's Valuation 1847-1864


      I hope this helps,

      findmypast.co.uk Support Team

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    3. Well, well, well. This is something the all of the "free subscribers" ought to know. Neither MyHeritage.com nor Ancestry.com have this type of limitation, that I know of.

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  2. I currently subscribe to both Origins and Find My Past sites for UK research - when can I expect a refund on the balance of my Origins subscription? Or will the Origins subscription terms 'drop off' at the renewal date? SEW Australia

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    Replies
    1. According to the press release, Origins.net will continue to operate as usual, at least for the time being. I am guessing that there will be no refunds.

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