Ancestry.com Announces New Newspapers.com Subscription Website

Ancestry.com sent this press release about their new Newspapers.com subscription website:

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ANCESTRY.COM LAUNCHES NEW WEB SITE NEWSPAPERS.COM

Online Newspaper Web Site Offers a High-Quality Collection of Digitized and Completely Searchable U.S. Newspapers Dating Back Centuries

(PROVO, Utah) – November 29, 2012 – Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM), the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced the launch of Newspapers.com, a powerful and affordable new web site designed to offer a historically rich collection of more than 800 U.S. newspapers dating from the late 1700s into the early 2000s. 

Comprising more than 25 million pages, Newspapers.com offers a trove of historical and present-day newspapers ranging from the New York Times to treasured small town and local newspapers throughout the United States.

Interested users will find centuries of amazing news articles and photos now captured online when browsing hundreds of years of breaking news headlines, searching for information about an ancestor or reading how the media addressed moments in history like the day Charles A. Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic, the opening of Disneyland or news from the fronts during World War I and World War II.

“We’re extremely excited about the launch of Newspapers.com because it offers historical value for people of all ages and areas of interest,” said Brian Hansen, General Manager of Newspapers.com. “Searching newspapers is like searching the Facebook footprint of the past. Not only can you find information on births, marriages and deaths, but you can also get a glimpse into what life was like during a specific era. We hope our users have fun making their own discoveries in this great newspaper collection that will continue to grow over time.”

The search capabilities on Newspapers.com are specifically designed for newspapers enabling users to easily search by keywords, location, time period and newspaper name. From the 1784 Newport Mercury newspaper to a 2009 edition of The Gettysburg Times, users may find old advertisements or job listings, laugh at comics, retrieve family history clues or learn about famous events through the eyes and words of the time period.

The user experience is also enhanced by an image viewer that serves up crisp, high-quality images of the newspapers. Once discovered, newspaper images can easily be clipped, saved and shared via social outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. 

Within this growing newspaper collection are a myriad photos and stories that provide unique perspective on history. Examples include:

·        Abraham Lincoln – Abraham Lincoln’s death is noted as “Our Great Loss” in the April 16, 1865 edition of the New York Times

·        Interesting People – The first baby picture of John Jacob Astor VI, whose father perished on the Titanic, is posted among other photos including one of Andrew Carnegie in the 1914 New York Times section labeled “Interesting People Seen Through the Camera’s Eye”

·        Price Changes – See how costs have changed over time, for example the New York Times cost one cent back in 1852, a paper that today costs $2.50 for its weekday edition

·        Marilyn Monroe – A Parade article featuring an exclusive interview with Marilyn Monroe in 1952 talked about how the famous actress saw herself

·        Man on the Moon – In 1969, the first U.S. astronaut on the moon as highlighted in the Iowa Estherville Daily News

·        St. Valentine’s Day Massacre – The day after the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago, articles all across America followed the story including The Daily Independent

In addition to the historical view this newspaper collection provides, it also peers into the pop culture of American history. Learn about Lita Grey’s marriage to Charlie Chaplin on November 24, 1924 in the Ohio Zanesville Times Signal. Skim vintage advertisements, such as those by Sears, offering customers the opportunity to trade in old tires for a credit toward new ones in a 1952 advertisement in the Arizona Sun Times. Read your favorite comic strip from years ago, like Peanuts, Hi and Lois and even a 1947 Lil’ Abner comic strip where Daisy Mae laments not being a comic strip character.

Newspapers.com provides an affordable glimpse into the past with a yearly subscription rate of $79.95 for subscribers and $39.95 for Ancestry.com or Fold3.com members. Newspapers.com also offers a 7-day free trial that can be activated at www.newspapers.com.

About Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) is the world's largest online family history resource, with approximately 2 million paying subscribers. More than 11 billion records have been added to the site in the past 16 years. Ancestry users have created more than 41 million family trees containing more than 4 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship site, Ancestry.com offers several localized Web sites designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include the benefits we expect subscribers to obtain from the Newspapers.com collection and our ability to grow the collection. Risks and uncertainties include our inability to attract subscribers; our ability to satisfy customer’s expectations as to the content of the collection, now and in the future; and our ability to make the products and services easy to use. Information concerning additional factors that could cause results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements is contained under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2012, and in discussions in other of our SEC filings. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date and we assume no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

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On the site, I saw no way to indicate the $39.95 for Ancestry.com or Fold3.com subscribers.  Perhaps I missed it, or I have to call the phone number.  

I signed up for the 7-day free trial so I can poke around in it.

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