Who owns the genealogy companies? -- Additional Information

Two items:

First, please notice the links in the sidebar to the individual articles in each series. I will work at keeping them up to date.

Second:

Ian Tester from findmypast.com left the following comment:

Just FYI, brightsolid online publishing have also recently acquired the FriendsReunited group, including genesreunited.co.uk which is the number 2 player in the UK market (behind ancestry.co.uk). brightsolid is 100% owned by DC Thomson, the family-owned media group, and most famous for being owner of the Beano comic. http://www.dcthomson.co.uk/

 FriendsReunited is a social networking site and there is also a Friends Reunited Dating Press and Genes Reunited. In a post of 18 March 2010 it states:

brightsolid today announced the completion of its acquisition of Friends Reunited Group from ITV plc for £25 million, following clearance by the Competition Commission.
The online innovation business, which is owned by DC Thomson, already owns and operates a number of online sites where people go to search their past, share their story and connect with people and places. It announced its intention to acquire Friends Reunited Group in August 2009 believing it an excellent opportunity to utilise this experience to bring new focus to the iconic brands in the group (Friends Reunited, Genes Reunited and Friends Reunited Dating).
The completion of the deal will now enable brightsolid to integrate the brands within its online publishing business. As part of this the genealogy site Genes Reunited will remain separate from brightsolid’s other genealogy services, including findmypast.co.uk. Both brands are already key players in the dynamic family history sector and united are set to make brightsolid one of Britain’s leading genealogy businesses.

 The owner, DC Thomson, is primarily a publishing company, producing more than 200 million magazines, newspapers and comics each year. DC Thomson has been publishing for well over 100 years. Titles in the newspaper field are The Courier and The Evening Telegraph both daily papers circulating in the Dundee, Angus, Fife and Perth areas and national papers the Sunday Post and the Weekly News. The company also publishes a range of magazines for both adults and children ranging from The People’s Friend to The Beano. D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd is registered in Scotland- Company Registration Number SC005830 registered office at Courier Buildings, 2 Albert Square, Dundee DD1 9QJ

Quoting from Wikipedia, "The company began as a branch of the Thomson family business when W Thomson became the sole proprietor of Charles Alexander & Co., publishers of Dundee Courier and Daily Argus. In 1884, David Coupar Thomson took over the publishing business, and established it as DC Thomson in 1905. The firm flourished, and took its place as the third J in the "Three Js", the traditional summary of Dundee industry ('jam, jute and journalism').^[2] Thomson was notable for his conservatism, vigorously opposing the introduction of trade unions into his workforce, and for refusing to employ Catholics."