Ancestry.com files for IPO

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Permalink Reply by Anne on August 4, 2009 at 10:44am

Thank you for this link! That is facinating The document is hugely long but answered many of my questions about who owns what genealogy company. I kind of had the idea that ancestry.com bought out genealogy.com, but I didn't know they got rootsweb too. So much for the competition. I was really surprised at how high the salaries were (page 89-most over $500,000 and $2.2 million to the ceo). I missed the press release too, even though ancestry sent me 2 emails this morning. I'm no financial expert, but it did not seem like a typical growth company. It kind of seemed like Ancestry was taken over at the end of 2007(?) by spectrum(?),llc in order to go public and make ipo money. I am kind of ambivalent on its corporate existance. On the one hand, I want it to thrive. I like having the availability of its indexing and family treemaker program. But I don't like the idea of some high paid holding company competing with the LDS Church on the back of others' hard work. I guess I want them to walk a finer line and be more like benevolent techie librarians than stock-optioned executives. Did I understand the filing corectly? Am I missing something or is that some of the reason they didn't make this announcement on their own formidable websites?

Permalink Reply by Chip Taylor on August 4, 2009 at 10:57am

I have to say I totall agree with you, Anne. I am an Ancestry subscriber. Until I saw this IPO I was also a keyer/arbiter on the World Archives Project. But if they can pay a CEO $2.2 million and a bunch of other suits a half million each then they can darn well pay to enhance their databases! I have turned in my keying tool. Pffffft!!!!!