Oct
Family Genealogy Forum
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Where did the idea come from that Ancestry bought the LDS Church?
The LDS Church supports Ancestry but does not own it. Ancestry’s work has become so expensive that the Church has decided to help support their activities. There are other supporters also. Ancestry is located in Provo,Utah some 40 miles from the Main LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City and started out as a family endeavor and it has grown to what it is now.And, no entity can afford to buy the LDS Church. So lets leave the religious undertones about any church in what is a genealogy forum and appreciate every site that helps us with our research. Sadly research costs money if we want as much as possible available to us. What’s the old saying? “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.And certainly get our facts straight before we do. Why,if some are so adamant about the Church don’t use what they help support. You can’t have it both ways.
About 10 years ago I had a nice cushy corporate job and met the man whose job is to maintain all of the databases for the LDS. For anyone to think the LDS is up for sale is beyond silly. They have a very profitable program in place and a ready supply of volunteers to keep it running very efficiently on the meager cost of the films and fiche that we order. What costs us $3 or more costs them pennies to produce.
Ancestry was placed in Provo specifically because its founders wanted close access to the LDS main library so they could transcribe information that wasn’t readily available and put it online at a time when few people saw the potential for the internet. Back then the field was dominated by Broderbund and they were making a mint selling access to CDs with information…and you had to buy a whole load of CDs to get anywhere in your research.
I don’t know why people would confuse proximity with ownership. But that happens anywhere in life. I give a lot of credit to both organizations in the way they created a strong, vibrant market for genealogy information…and the way they were able to make it accessible to millions efficiently and accurately.
Wu-Family Genealogy Upkeep Record