QinetiQ sells 1901 Census venture to Friends Reunited for £3.3 million

19 August 2005

QinetiQ has sold its successful 1901 Census online business - which it developed from scratch and operated for The National Archives - to Friends Reunited for just over £3.3 million. The website, launched on 2 January 2002, has played a key role in the burgeoning popularity of family tree research.

The business has been bought by Friends Reunited´s genealogy website Genes Reunited. QinetiQ will oversee the migration of the website from QinetiQ´s Malvern site to Friends Reunited´s head office in Oxted, once appropriate systems are in place to ensure an uninterrupted service to users.

"The success and phenomenal popularity of the 1901 Census site over the past couple of years speaks for itself,"

explained James Kirby, Director of Census Business at QinetiQ.

"We have developed and delivered one of the largest and most sophisticated database systems, via a web interface, ever seen but while QinetiQ is skilled at delivering managed businesses we don´t have a broad consumer base, so it makes sense for Friends Reunited to now take this successful business on to the next level."

Since its launch, the 1901 Census for England and Wales website has successfully handled over 120 million hits, processed over 12 million paid downloads and helped millions to research their family trees.

The site provides free search access to the data with low-cost 'pay-per-view' downloads for the actual documents. Ongoing research has shown that almost 90% of users would recommend the 1901 site to others and over 75% of them rate the site as good to excellent. Having done the free searches around one in four visitors also download an average of 30 paid for images and a similar number of all users are first time visitors.

The recent growth in history and genealogy related programmes like 'Time Team' on Channel 4, through to the BBC2 series 'Who Do You Think You Are?' and the Radio 4 series, 'What Did Your Ancestors Do For A Living?' have all contributed to the increasing popularity of family tree research.

Internet technology has created millions of 'cyber detectives' who are harnessing the web's incredible resources and unlocking the secrets in their family tree. Genes Reunited has grown dramatically since its launch in 2003 and now has over 3.2 million members and 39 million names listed, with one name being added every second of every day.

Michael Murphy, Chief Executive of Friends Reunited, said:

"We found that as the site grew our members were discovering more and more links in their family trees and so their thirst for more detail on their ancestors grew too. Responding to their requests for official government records, we looked at ways that we could add this service to effectively create a one-stop-shop for anyone wanting to research their family tree."

The huge task of digitising the original Census images and creating an index to over 32 million names, spanning almost 1.5 million pages with some 20 to 30 fields per name, was the result of a Public Finance Initiative contract between QinetiQ and The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office). The result is a unique "snapshot" summary of people in England and Wales in 1901 and is an invaluable and easily accessible resource to people searching their family roots or interested in social history.

Users only pay when they download images of the original census return or census transcripts. The costs are 75p (images) or 50p (transcripts) and users pay by credit card or with vouchers available from most public libraries. Any ongoing activities or outstanding vouchers will continue to be honoured by the new operators.

"QinetiQ has developed a great resource which, under the new management of Friends Reunited and Genes Reunited, will continue to deliver a first class service,"

concluded Sarah Tyacke, Chief Executive of The National Archives.

"The National Archives online services are available to people around the globe and the partnership with Genes Reunited will highlight this international accessibility."

Genes Reunited becomes a Licensed Internet Associate partner of The National Archives for the 1901 Census and immediately assumes the management of the 1901 census website at http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ and http://www.1901censusonline.com/ .