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SCOTLAND ONLINE CREATES WORLD-CLASS FORCE IN FAMILY HISTORY MARKET WITH ACQUISITION OF FINDMYPAST.COM

Scotland Online, the ISP and IT solutions provider, today announced it has acquired findmypast.com, the leading independent UK-based family history website, from Title Research Group as part of its plans to establish a world-class online network of family history resources.

The merger will see Scotland Online’s current online genealogy service, ScotlandsPeople, working closely with findmypast.com to create a dynamic family history resource to serve millions of family history enthusiasts worldwide.

The amalgamation of the two websites will enable a wider audience to access the most complete suite of family history records available online in the UK and will benefit the genealogy industry by enabling genealogists and amateur family history enthusiasts to access hundreds of millions of records in one place. Scotland Online recently won the tender for the 1911 England and Wales census records, which will be available during 2009.

Findmypast.com will also continue to add data and functionality to the website, further consolidating the company’s long-term commitment to the family history market.

Findmypast.com established itself as an innovative genealogical service with a commitment to customers and quality that have made it the number one destination website for family history researchers. It was the first company in the world to put the complete Birth, Marriage and Death indexes for England and Wales online, later adding its census and unique passenger list records.

Continued improvement in findmypast.com’s functionality and user experience will remain a key objective for the business, and customer access to both findmypast.com and ScotlandsPeople’s online resources will be unaffected by the merger. Findmypast.com will continue to be based in London.

Chris van der Kuyl, Chief Executive of Scotland Online, said; ”We are delighted to welcome the findmypast team to Scotland Online and look forward to working very closely with them on building a wonderful family history resource. Family history enthusiasts the world over will benefit from our experience in developing customer facing services and combining our existing skills within Scotland Online with those of findmypast  will be of great benefit to the family history community”.

Tom Curran, Chief Executive of Title Research Group, the parent company of findmypast.com, commented: “This transaction will bring together two established and successful genealogy resources to create a world-class network of family history records. I am delighted Scotland Online shares findmypast.com’s dedication to making more genealogy resources available to both genealogists and family history enthusiasts and that they share our passion for excellence and commitment to customers.”
ENDS

For further media information, please contact:
Vicky Perry/ Erica Gyulafia
Lansons Communications
+44 (0)207 566 9708/ +44 (0)207 566 9714
vickyp@lansons.com/ ericg@lansons.com

Notes to Editors

About Scotland Online
Scotland Online specialises in providing online business, hosting, disaster recovery and security services to the corporate and business markets. Its clients include Scottish Widows, Standard Life and the Scottish Government.
Scotland Online, in partnership with the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon, runs scotlandspeople.gov.uk. This year Scotland Online won the contract to digitise, license and publish the 1911 census of England and Wales from The National Archives in Kew.

About findmypast.com

Findmypast.com (formerly 1837online.com) was the first company to make the complete Birth, Marriage and Death indexes for England & Wales available online in April 2003.

Following the transcription, scanning and indexing of over two million images, the company launched the first website to allow the public easy and fast access to the complete indexes, which until then had only been available on microfiche film in specialist archives and libraries. The launch was instrumental in creating the widespread and growing interest in genealogy seen in the UK today.

Findmypast has subsequently digitised many more family history records and now offers access to over 500 million records dating as far back as 1538. This allows family historians and novice genealogists to search for their ancestors among comprehensive collections of military records, census, migration, occupation directories, and current electoral roll data, as well as the original comprehensive birth, marriage and death records.

In November 2006 findmypast launched the ancestorsonboard.com microsite in association with The National Archives to publish outbound passenger lists for long-distance voyages departing all British ports between 1890 and 1960.

As well as providing access to historical records, findmypast is also developing a range of online tools to help people discover and share their family history more easily, beginning with the launch of Family Tree Explorer in July 2007.

Over 1.7 million people in the UK have researched their family trees and findmypast.com has over 800,000 active registered users, revealing the mass appeal of genealogy and findmypast.com’s position as the leading family history website based in the UK.

In April 2007 findmypast’s parent company Title Research Group received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2007 in recognition of their achievement.

About Title Research Group

Title Research Group Limited is the holding company for Title Research, founded in 1965, and findmypast.com, founded in 2003. Title Research provides genealogy research services to the legal profession and other professionals needing to locate next of kin.

In the course of its work the company needed to consult the Birth, Marriage and Death indexes on a daily basis and took the decision to scan and digitise these to increase its own efficiency. This was the first time that these records had been scanned, transcribed and indexed. Having completed this massive project, Title Research Group then decided to put the indexes on the internet at findmypast.com, enabling those interested in family history to access them from anywhere in the world.