WorldVitalRecords.com Launches World Genealogy Collection

A billion names from 33 countries coming online

PROVO, UT, February 4, 2008 — WorldVitalRecords.com (a service of FamilyLink.com) released today its flagship product, the World Collection, an online genealogy database containing more than 1.5 billion names from 35 countries.

WorldVitalRecords.com‘s World Collection launch includes significant collections from countries such as: England, Canada, Australia, France, Ireland, Scotland, Hungary, and Portugal.

“All over the world there are wonderful people who are digitizing and preserving historic records,” said Paul Allen, CEO, FamilyLink.com, Inc. “During the past year we have traveled and met with these content providers from more than a dozen countries. We are pleased today to announce that many of them have chosen to let us distribute their genealogical databases on the Internet.”

More than 20 companies have partnered with WorldVitalRecords.com to make this new collection possible. They include Find My Past, Genealogical Publishing Company, Archive CD Books Australia, British Origins, Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, Archive CD Books Canada, Eneclann, Quintin Publications, Gould Genealogy, Familias Argentinas, Godfrey Memorial Library, and Moravian Heritage Society.

“This is a very exciting announcement for our WorldVitalRecords.com members. As we enter our second year, we have accomplished much including having more than 24,000 paid subscribers, 2 million users on our We’re Related application on Facebook, and have announced 2 billion names in our two major content collections, the US and World Collection. The number two seems to be common theme in this announcement as we enter our second stage,” said David Lifferth, President, FamilyLink.com, Inc.

The World Collection includes birth, marriage and death records, census records, passenger lists, immigration lists, emigration records, foreign newspapers, cemetery records, reference materials, land records, family histories, historical records, city directories, business directories, township histories, civil service records, telephone directories, government records, war records, and maps, atlases, and gazetteers.

Census records from the UK comprise WorldVitalRecords.com‘s largest database in the World Collection. These records include the 1851, 1861, 1881, and 1891, 1901 censuses. These records are the official civil registration records for England and Wales from 1837 to the present. All of these censuses will be periodically posted county by county throughout the year. These censuses include images, and also a key-word searchable index.

“Alongside birth, marriage, and death records, census records are the most important building block for family historians,” said Elaine Collins, Commercial Director, Find My Past. “We feel WorldVitalRecords.com is set for success, and we are excited to make our census records more accessible to an American audience who wouldn’t normally think of Find My Past as the first place to look for census records.”

The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild (ISTG) lists is another large database containing almost 9,000 passenger lists and millions of names. The ISTG records include information such as surname, captain’s name, port of arrival/departure, and name of the ship. These records are the result of the work of more than 500 volunteers over a ten-year period.

“I am very excited about this partnership. I remember when ISTG was one-year old, and everyone was supporting us. In return, I’m happy to partner with WorldVitalRecords.com because they provide a service that is affordable and easily accessible on the Internet,” said Patty MacFarlane McCormack, Founder, Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild.

The World Collection also includes newspapers from Australia, the Bahamas, Canada (over 80 newspaper representing all provinces), Chile, Ecuador, England, Ireland, and Mexico (more than 150 newspapers from 15 states).

Genealogical Publishing Company also adds more than 600 large databases to the World Collection including colonial and Irish genealogy, royal ancestry, and family history.

“We have been publishing at Genealogical.com for 55 years, and we look forward to expanding our work into new territories, such as WorldVitalRecords.com,” said Barry Chodak, President, Genealogical Publishing Company.

Individuals can access more than 5,000 genealogical databases, more than 2 billion names (these names are being added throughout the year), and the World Collection at WorldVitalRecords.com

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Media Contact

Whitney Ransom
Corporate Communications Director
FamilyLink.com, Inc.
WorldVitalRecords.com
whitney@familylink.com

About FamilyLink.com, Inc.

FamilyLink.com, Inc. is a family of services that includes WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyLink.com, and We’re Related on Facebook. The focus of the company is to provide innovative tools to connect families.

About World Vital Records, Inc.

Founded in 2006, by Paul Allen and several key members of the original Ancestry.com team, World Vital Records, Inc. provides affordable genealogy databases and family history tools used by more than 470,000 monthly visitors, 6.4 million monthly pages views, and more than 24,000 subscribers. With thousands of databases including birth, death, military, census, and parish records, WorldVitalRecords.com makes it easy to extend your family tree. World Vital Records also runs FamilyLink.com, a social network for genealogists, and We’re Related, a popular Facebook application with more than 2 million users. Some of its partners include Everton Publishers, Quintin Publications, Archive CD Books Australia, Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, Archive CD Books Canada, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., SmallTownPapers®, Accessible Archives, Genealogical Publishing Company, Find My Past, Godfrey Memorial Library, Find A Grave, and FamilySearch™. Investors include vSpring Capital and several angel investors.