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53-460: The WFA was established by military historian John Giles, who enlisted the help of the historian John Terraine , who co-wrote the landmark television series The Great War , which was first broadcast by the BBC in 1964. Giles was driven to form The Western Front Association as a result of the creation of such groups as 'The Gallipoli Association' which had been established in 1969, and, in the early 1970s

106-561: A collection of 12 virtual battlefield tours and the WFA's TrenchMapper App which allows the user to identify locations along the Western Front using maps of the period and overlay these with a modern map. With nearly sixty branches worldwide, including fifty in the UK and Ireland, the WFA has a representation in most counties in the UK and in most of 'main combatant' countries which took part in

159-496: A complaint about their misleading marketing being upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority. Acquired by Ancestry on May 24, 2021, the press release announced that 'Forces War Records is a British military genealogy-specialist website with a unique product that helps people both discover and contextualize their family's military history.' Given that Fold3 had a negative perception as "US-centric",

212-633: A longtime investor in Infobases and founder of WordPerfect , was its chairman of the board. Allen and Taggart began running Ancestry, Inc. independently from Infobases in July 1997, and began creating one of the largest online subscription-based genealogy database services. In April 1999, to better focus on its Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com Internet businesses, Infobases sold the Bookcraft brand name and its catalog of print books to its major competitor in

265-637: A mobile app in March 2014. Fold3 is a premium portal that specializes in military genealogy. Subscribers access an online database with military records, including stories, photos, and personal documents. It was rebranded as Forces War Records in the British & Commonwealth nations in April 2023. Ancestry.com acquired iArchives, Inc. , and its service footnote.com, in 2010. The purchase brought in assets including processes for digitizing microfilm . Footnote

318-404: A private equity group consisting of Permira Advisers LLP, members of Ancestry.com's management team, including CEO Tim Sullivan and CFO Howard Hochhauser, and Spectrum Equity, for $ 32 per share or around $ 1.6 billion. At the same time, Ancestry.com purchased a photo digitization and sharing service called 1000Memories . In 2013, Ancestry acquired Find a Grave from Jim Tipton, who had created

371-482: A slavery-era interracial couple. The advertisement was criticized by a news correspondent for Boston radio station WBUR-FM and MSNBC , and law professor Melissa Murray , on the grounds that it romanticized slavery in the antebellum South . In April 2019, Ancestry withdrew the advertisement with an apology. In November 2018, Ancestry claimed to have over 10 billion digitized records and over three-million paying customers. In December 2018, after authorities arrested

424-593: A week during this period - as a result there is now a large, readily accessed collection of video talks on The Western Front Association's YouTube channel. As these online talks were so successful they have continued to feature regularly, usually on a Monday evening two or more times a month. The WFA organises each year the Remembrance ceremony held at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London on 11 November (except when

477-494: Is NewspaperArchive , which claims it has online newspapers dating from 1607 worldwide, and its index in March 2024 included over 16,000 newspapers. Both websites have similar models for increasing their databases: striking deals with libraries, publishers and historical organizations to scan the publications for free to include in their database. Some participants see the process of free scanning as an easier, cheaper and quicker way to get their publications online than working through

530-420: Is a hub for this educational charity: content and resources included many hundreds of articles, book reviews and podcasts, as well as member login access to 8.4 million digitised Pension Records, archived journals and magazines, including the entire 40+ year archive of the WFA's own journal 'Stand To!' and member magazine 'Bulletin'. Further resources include a vast collection of thousands of stereoview photographs,

583-605: Is available, particularly for those individuals who survived the Great War. Prior to the digitisation, it was possible to pay an admin fee of £25 for the records to be consulted, and copied where relevant to the search. The digitisation of these records was announced in December 2017, the initial batch being released October 2018, the task being completed in 2021. The Imperial War Museum's sound archive holds over 33,000 recordings relating to conflict since 1914. This consists of

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636-979: The First World War , Mons: The Retreat to Victory , was published in 1960. In 1964 Terraine edited a collection of diaries written by General James Lochhead Jack during the First World War, which became a best-seller in the United Kingdom. The Right of the Line: The Royal Air Force in the European War 1939–45 (1985) won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year award. His last book, Business in Great Waters: The U-Boat Wars, 1916–1945

689-601: The Golden State Killer and used GEDmatch to solve the case, Ancestry.com and 23andMe announced a data policy that they would not allow their DNA profiles to be used for crime solving without a valid legal process such as a search warrant , as they believe it violates users' privacy. In the 2021 case of the murder of George Seitz , Ancestry.com was used to help identify the remains of a crime victim. In August 2020, The Blackstone Group announced plans to acquire Ancestry for $ 4.7 billion, and in December 2020

742-703: The Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies . He was awarded the institute's Chesney Gold Medal in 1982. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1987. In 1945 Terraine married Joyce Waite; they had one daughter. Terraine died in London, aged 82. Ancestry.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah . The largest for-profit genealogy company in

795-498: The Somme ". Terraine was born in London and was educated at Stamford School and Keble College, Oxford . After leaving Oxford in 1943, he joined BBC radio and continued to work for the BBC for 18 years, ending as its Pacific and South African Programme Organiser. After resigning from the BBC in 1961, Terraine worked as a freelance television screenwriter. Among other series, Terraine was associate producer and chief screenwriter of

848-519: The 'Waterloo Association' which had been set up to save the old battlefield. It was in this context, over the following years, that John Giles developed the idea for an association on the First World War with its emphasis on the Western Front. It would be, John Giles was clear, 'The Western Front' and not, in his words about 'Salonica or Naval battles; - the definitive article 'The' was also stipulated. And thus in November 1980 The Western Front Association

901-518: The 11th falls on Remembrance Sunday). The 2014 ceremony was attended by then Prime Minister, David Cameron . Members of the WFA have access to a subset of Fold3. It provides access to the War Office medal index cards and the Ministry of Pensions index cards and ledgers, both of which were saved by the WFA. The Medal Index Cards were saved from destruction in 2005. Medal Index Cards (MICs) are

954-467: The 1963–64 BBC-TV documentary The Great War , and co-wrote its sequel The Lost Peace (1965). For Rediffusion and Thames Television he wrote The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten (1966–68) and Lord Mountbatten: A Man for the Century (1969), and later collaborated with Louis Mountbatten on an illustrated biography based on the series. Terraine found Mountbatten an impressive performer, but

1007-726: The Government of Singapore) and Silver Lake (a private equity fund manager) bought equity stakes in Ancestry.com. The estimated market value of Ancestry.com in 2017 was more than $ 3 billion. In June 2017, Ancestry.com stated that it was migrating all of its applications and data to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Through vintage photographs, a woman was able to document eight generations of her family, dating back to 1805, including an interracial couple. A controversial Ancestry.com advertisement had run on television stations in Utah , showing

1060-538: The Great War is discussed. The WFA publishes its journal, 'Stand To!' four times a year. This contains articles on the military and social history of The Great War on all fronts globally: at sea, in the air, on land and at home. There is also a house magazine for members, the 'Bulletin', which is also published three times each year. An electronic newsletter 'Trench Lines' is also available produced. In addition there are over 250 podcasts 'Mentioned in Dispatches' and on

1113-403: The Great War. Membership of the WFA is not a requisite to attend branch meetings, which are open to the public. There are no formal charges for attending these meetings, but a donation on the door is usually requested, this is typically between £3 and £5. Most branches hold an event at least once a month, so there are between 500 and 600 meetings up and down the UK every year in which an aspect of

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1166-860: The LDS book market, Deseret Book . Included in the sale were the rights to Infobases' LDS Collectors Library on CD. A year earlier, Deseret Book had released a competing product called GospeLink, and the two products were combined as a single product by Deseret Book. The MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998, with additional free sites beginning in March 1999. The site generated one-million registered users within its first 140 days. The company raised more than US$ 90 million in venture capital from investors and changed its name on November 17, 1999, from Ancestry.com, Inc. to MyFamily.com, Inc. Its three Internet genealogy sites were then called Ancestry.com, FamilyHistory.com, and MyFamily.com. Sales were about US$ 62 million for 2002 and US$ 99 million for 2003. In March 2004,

1219-877: The Ministry Of Defence commenced transferring 9.7 million military records for individuals with a discharge date before 31 December 1963 to The National Archives UK, it's largest record transfer in the history of the organization. AncestryDNA is a subsidiary of Ancestry LLC. AncestryDNA offers a direct-to-consumer genealogical DNA test . Consumers provide a sample of their DNA to the company for analysis. AncestryDNA then uses DNA sequences to infer family relationships with other Ancestry DNA users, and to infer "ancestral regions" (previously " ethnicity estimates"). Previously, Ancestry.com also offered paternal Y-chromosome DNA and maternal mitochondrial DNA tests, but those were discontinued in June 2014. The company describes

1272-541: The RootsWeb and Ancestry Web sites. On December 20, 2017, a file containing 300,000 RootsWeb user names, passwords, and email addresses was exposed to the Internet. The 300,000 records were from RootsWeb surname list service; 55,000 of those records were also Ancestry.com login credentials. By 2024, the hosted Web sites were all read-only, disabling all user logins. We Remember is a free online memorial platform, which

1325-481: The U.S. government-operated National Digital Newspaper Program . RootsWeb, acquired by Ancestry in June 2000, is a free genealogy community that uses online forums, mailing lists, and other resources to help people research their family history. Users can upload GEDCOM files of their information for others to search at the WorldConnect portion of the site. Trees uploaded to WorldConnect are searchable at both

1378-717: The WFA YouTube channel many hundreds of videos - often carefully produced recordings of webinars and in-person lectures. The Western Front Association has for many years made videos of lectures held at its events, as well as making a short film of the Armistice Day event at the Cenotaph, Whitehall every 11 November. There are now several hundred videos available. During the COVID-19 Pandemic a series of regular online talks were initiated, sometimes meeting twice

1431-411: The WFA announced that it has secured over six million Pension Index Cards and Ledgers from the UK's Ministry of Defence, which would otherwise have been destroyed. These are an extremely valuable primary source for family and military historians as they provide information on men (and some women) who served in the Great War and who subsequently applied for a pension. This significantly adds to the data that

1484-417: The acquisition occurred. In February 2021, Ancestry announced Deb Liu , a former Facebook executive, as their CEO effective March 1. In November 2021, Ancestry announced the acquisition of French Genealogy Company Geneanet . In March 2023, Ancestry announced that it had won a contract to digitize over 3 million British Army service records, which it would release from 2024 through 2029. In February 2021

1537-1341: The battlefields for its members three times a year. Many of the WFA's branches organise similar tours at a local level. Patrons : Prof. Hew Strachan FRSE, FRHistS Professor Peter Simkins MBE FRHistS Honorary President : Professor Gary Sheffield BA MA PhD FRHistS Honorary Vice Presidents : Professor John Bourne BA PhD FRHistS The Burgomaster of Ypres The Mayor of Albert Col (Rtd) Patrick M Dennis OMM Lt. Col. (Rtd) Christopher Pugsley DPhil FRHistS Dr Roger V. Lee PhD jssc Major-General (ret'd) Mungo Melvin CB OBE Dr Jack Sheldon MA PhD FRGS Dr Spencer Jones Past Patrons : Sir John Glubb KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC John Terraine FRHist. Colonel Terry Cave, CBE. Past Presidents : John Terraine FRHist.S Correlli Barnett CBE, DSc, MA, FRSI, FRHistS, FRSA Past Vice Presidents : The Earl Kitchener TD, DL Tony Noyes CEng MICE John Toland The Prince Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley , GBE, KCB, DSO, MC The Earl Haig , OBE, KStJ, DL Col Terry Cave CBE Leonard G. Shurtleff André Coillot. John Terraine John Alfred Terraine , FRHistS (15 January 1921 – 28 December 2003 )

1590-618: The cards would be destroyed. No museum or archive was prepared to take them on, so the Western Front Association came forward and agreed to save these records. Since obtaining these cards, the WFA has been storing them. Many WFA members requested copies, often placing the card in a frame alongside the medals. An admin fee of £5 was payable, for a colour copy. The cards were scanned as colour images, and made available via Ancestry.com in February 2008. In November 2012,

1643-845: The company, which had outgrown its call center in Orem, Utah , opened a new call center , which accommodated about 700 agents at a time, in Provo . Heritage Makers was acquired by MyFamily.com in September 2005. On November 5, 2009, Ancestry.com became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ (symbol: ACOM), with an initial public offering of 7.4 million shares priced at $ 13.50 per share, underwritten by Morgan Stanley , Bank of America , Merrill Lynch , Jefferies & Company , Piper Jaffray , and BMO Capital Markets . In 2010, Ancestry sold its book publishing assets to Turner Publishing Company . In 2010, Ancestry.com expanded its domestic operations with

Western Front Association - Misplaced Pages Continue

1696-483: The first use of the Ancestry.com web address. More growth for Infobases occurred in July 1997, when Ancestry, Inc. purchased Bookcraft, Inc. , a publisher of books written by leaders and officers of the LDS Church. Infobases had published many of Bookcraft's books as part of its LDS Collector's Library. Pelo also announced that Ancestry's product line would be greatly expanded in both CDs and online. Alan Ashton ,

1749-448: The largest oral history collection of its type in the world, with contributions from both service personnel and non-combatants as well as significant holdings of speeches, sound effects, broadcasts, poetry and music. The Western Front Association funded digitisation of the majority of IWM's First World War sound recordings, thereby widening public access to this important historical resource. The Western Front Association organises tours of

1802-417: The launch of Ancestry.com in 1996. On January 1, 1997, Infobases' parent company, Western Standard Publishing, purchased Ancestry, Inc., publisher of Ancestry magazine and genealogy books. Western Standard Publishing's CEO was Joseph A. Cannon , one of the principal owners of Geneva Steel . In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standard's interest in Ancestry, Inc. At the time, Brad Pelo

1855-449: The moment is limited to dogs. The test compares the DNA to over 400 breeds. On September 30, 2013, Ancestry.com announced its acquisition of Find a Grave . Site editor Jim Tipton said of the purchase that Ancestry.com had "been linking and driving traffic to the site for several years. Burial information is a wonderful source for people researching their family history". Ancestry.com launched

1908-651: The opening of an office in San Francisco, California , staffed with brand new engineering, product, and marketing teams geared toward developing some of Ancestry's cutting-edge technology and services. In 2011, Ancestry launched an Android and iOS app. In December 2011, Ancestry.com moved the Social Security Death Index search behind a paywall and stopped displaying the Social Security information of people who had died within

1961-404: The option to participate in their Human Diversity Project, a "scientific research project aimed at helping scientists better understand population history, population movements, and human health". Members can also pay an additional fee to access DNA traits, which range from predicted physical traits to limited health data. Since 2023, Ancestry has also offered genetic testing for pets, which at

2014-618: The original method of recording medal entitlement for soldiers who served in the Great War. Each soldier who served in an active theatre of operations was awarded a medal. The Medal Index Cards were stored at the Ministry of Defence record centre in Hayes , up until its closure in 2005. Due to the need to make space, the MoD sold the Hayes site for redevelopment; the MoD (which owned the cards) proposed

2067-538: The original site in 1995. Ancestry subsequently launched a redesigned version of Find a Grave in 2017. On July 16, 2015, Ancestry launched AncestryHealth, and announced the appointment of Cathy A. Petti as its Chief Health Officer. That year, Ancestry partnered with the Google subsidiary, Calico , to focus on longevity research and therapeutics, in an effort to investigate human heredity of lifespan. In April 2016, GIC Private Limited (a sovereign wealth fund owned by

2120-522: The past 10 years, because of identity theft concerns. In March 2012, Ancestry.com acquired the collection of DNA assets from GeneTree . In September 2012, Ancestry.com expanded its international operations with the opening of its European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland . The Dublin office includes a new call center for international customers, as well as product, marketing, and engineering teams. In October 2012, Ancestry.com agreed to be acquired by

2173-422: The same dataset offerings and web architecture were used in the UK, albeit branded as Forces War Records, from April 2023 onwards. The provision of service records for the first time ever, via this brand, as a consequence of the linkage with fold3, has reinvigorated the brand. Not only transcriptions, but also images of source documents are now available to the subscriber. In support of the brand being relaunched as

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2226-418: The technical process of testing in a series of scientific white papers . In July 2020, the company claimed that their database contained 18 million completed DNA kits bought by customers. Ancestry DNA is commonly used for donor conceived persons to find their biological siblings and in some cases their sperm or egg donor . The testing itself is performed by Quest Diagnostics . AncestryDNA offers

2279-516: The world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The Blackstone Group , which acquired the company on December 4, 2020, in a deal valued at $ 4.7 billion. As of 2022, the company said it had provided access to 30 billion historical records, tripling its November 2018 figure of 10 billion records. In 2018 it also reported having 3 million paying subscribers, and to have sold 18 million DNA kits to customers. By 2023, Ancestry

2332-534: Was president and CEO of Infobases, and president of Western Standard. Less than six months earlier, he had been president of Folio Corporation, whose digital technology Infobases was using. In March 1997, Folio was sold to Open Market for $ 45 million. The first public evidence of the change in ownership of Ancestry magazine came with the July/August 1997 issue, which showed a newly reorganized Ancestry, Inc., as its publisher. That issue's masthead also included

2385-546: Was an English military historian and TV screenwriter. He is best known as the lead screenwriter for the landmark 1960s BBC-TV documentary The Great War , about the First World War , and for his defence of British General Douglas Haig – who commanded the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front from late 1915 until the end of the war – against charges that he was "The Butcher of

2438-517: Was bought by Ancestry for $ 100 million in 2012. Archives.com is a genealogy website specializing in census and vital records. As of November 29, 2023, Archives.com claimed 11.8 billion photos, newspapers, census, and vital records in its collections. In 2012, Ancestry spun off its digitized online newspaper components into a standalone service, Newspapers.com. By 2024, the site had over 25,000 newspapers able to be searched, including some from ten different countries. The Web site's principal competitor

2491-450: Was established. Since its foundation the WFA has grown over the years to in excess of 6,000 members worldwide. There are around 60 branches in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The WFA also now recognises all theatres of war and fronts covering every aspect of British and global history at this time. The Western Front Association is a UK registered charity, numbered 298365. The website of The Western Front Association

2544-601: Was initially to help members of the church to research their ancestors. Infobases' first products were floppy disks and compact disks sold from the back seat of the founders' car. In 1994, Infobases was named among Inc. magazine's 500 fastest-growing companies. Their first offering on CD was the LDS Collectors Edition, released in April 1995, selling for $ 299.95, which was offered in an online version in August 1995. Ancestry officially went online with

2597-425: Was intrigued by his "curious mix of boastfulness and diffidence". Terraine wrote and narrated The Mighty Continent (1974–75), a 13-part BBC-TV history of Europe in the first three-quarters of the 20th century. Terraine had 16 books published, most of them dealing with aspects of the great European wars of the 20th century, and numerous articles and book reviews for The Daily Telegraph . His first major study of

2650-612: Was launched by Ancestry in November 2017. It allows users to create a space to preserve and share photos and videos about the deceased. Forces War Records was a low cost provider of transcribed genealogical data from British sources. The irony was that much of the content behind their paywall had simply been taken from public domain sources. As a consequence, there was a lack of transparency as to where they sourced their content from. (See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 315#RfC: forces-war-records.co.uk ) They came under criticism for difficulties in canceling subscriptions, with

2703-484: Was published in 1989. Terraine was the founding president of the Western Front Association from 1980 to 1997, after which he became its patron. One obituarist wrote that for sheer scholarship, the quality and accessibility of his writing and for his debunking of historical myths, Terraine was one of the outstanding military historians of the 20th century. Terraine was for many years a member of

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2756-500: Was rebranded Fold3 in 2011. On August 31, 2021, Ancestry.com announced its acquisition of Geneanet . Geneanet explains that the acquisition by Ancestry is the consequence of the failure of the Filae negotiations with the birth of a formidable competitor. The Geneanet.org site, which must remain autonomous, indicates that it will give access to many databases indexed by Ancestry within the framework of Premium subscriptions. Archives.com

2809-811: Was the largest provider of consumer DNA testing in the world with a network of over 25 million users, and Ancestry DNA testing is now available in 128 countries. As well as its main website, Ancestry operates country-specific versions for Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Ancestry Publishing was founded in 1983, producing genealogical data in print form, with more than 40 family history magazine titles and genealogy reference books published. In 1990, Paul Brent Allen and Dan Taggart, two Brigham Young University graduates, founded Infobases and began offering Latter-day Saints (LDS) publications on floppy disks . In 1988, Allen had worked at Folio Corporation , founded by his brother Curt and his brother-in-law Brad Pelo . The service

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