ancestry.com

Ancestry.com set for $1.6B acquisition deal: WSJ

Genealogy website Ancestry.com is to be acquired for $1.6 billion, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

European private-equity firm Permira will buy the firm for $32 a share, the Journal said, citing sources familiar with the deal.

The buying price is a slight increase on the company's $29 a share price at market close on Friday. The $1.6 billion valuation represents a premium of about 40 percent on the company's stock from June, before speculation began about the company being up for sale.

Permira currently has close to 200 investments in its … Read more

Ancestry.com files for IPO

Popular genealogy site Ancestry.com is going public, hoping to raise around $75 million, according to its SEC filing for an initial public offering submitted Monday.

As a genealogy site, Ancestry.com enables people to research their family history to find out who their ancestors were and how their family tree blossomed. The company started life in 1983 as a book publisher and then jumped online in 1997.

Ancestry.com is run by a firm previously known as The Generations Network, which changed its own name in early July to Ancestry.com to capitalize on the brand name. The majority … Read more

Ancestry.com adds DNA genealogy to the mix...dare I peek?

Ancestry.com announced plans on Monday to add DNA digging to its mix of ancestral-sleuthing tools.

And for some, err...specifically me, it may answer an inside family joke as to whether my husband and I are actually distant, distant and, again, I emphasize distant, kissing cousins. We learned on our wedding day, while his mother and my grandmother chatted, that his grandparents and my great-grandparents were from the same small village in Hiroshima, Japan. Hmm, what are the odds?!?

Some things are better left unknown.

For those who are curious about their own genealogy, Ancestry's parent, The Generations … Read more