In February, the family research site Ancestry.com, managed by Josh Hanna '94, attracted 2.4 million visitors, more than ten times what it attracted in January. The site allows paid subscribers to search birth, death and marriage records, as well as public censuses.
"It is really an interesting phenomenon, because actually people have been doing their genealogy since the 1700s," history professor Joseph Cullon said. "Tracing genealogy becomes a hobby for a lot of people often in retirement."
Hanna said that the accessibility of his website's resources saves those interested in their family histories from slaving over microfilm in libraries, claiming that he remembered being in that position himself.
"What Ancestry.com did is instead of making you go to the library to furrow it all out, it brings you the same information at the click of the mouse," Cullon said.
After receiving an MBA from Harvard and unsuccessfully attempting a career in Silicon Valley, Hanna began a temporary position at Genealogy.comand was running the site's subscription business in 2003 when MyFamily.com bought the website.
In addition to providing public records, Ancestry.com also incorporates a participatory aspect that allows users to post any information they have. This research posting allows those investigating the same family to come into contact, Cullon said.
Dartmouth does not have a subscription with Ancestry.com, but instead is electronically registered with an American genealogical society in Massachusetts, according to Francis Oscadal, a library bibliographer. Oscadal mentioned that the College has purchased censuses and a few family trees to add to the libraries collection, mainly in pursuit of history.
"People come into the library doing family genealogy because of Dartmouth's rich collection of early American history," Oscadal said.
According to computer science professor Lorie Loeb, Ancestry.com appears to be accurate and legitimate due to its use of respectable sources.
"It's census data; it's accurate as census data can be. It's all just a matter of how good the search engine is, and it seems to be a pretty straightforward search," Loeb said.
Ancestry.com is unique in that it has an agreement with the British Public Records Office, making it the only website to have full digital access to British censuses from 1841 to 1901. The website publicized this agreement along with research on celebrity blood ties which, for example, has found that President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill have a common ancestor, 15th-century Northamptonshire squire Henry Spencer.
Ancestry.com competes with free websites such as FamilySearch.org, which is run by volunteer Mormon workers and claims to have the largest free collection of family history records in the world.
Christmas and Easter Weekend are Ancestry.com's busiest times of the year, Hanna said, "because families get together and inevitably start telling stories about granny and someone gets the bug to go explore further."
