Ancestry, the genealogy and DNA testing company, has digitized millions of records of people who were displaced or persecuted in the Holocaust and made them searchable online at no cost.
“Every American Jew has people they lost,” she said. “It’s just the matter of the degree of separation.” “In genealogy, the almighty why is the hardest,” she said. “Why did my family end up in Atlanta when they were from the small town in Germany? When we find out how travel was arranged, that might open new doors.”
Beyond curiosity, this information is useful, Linderman said. The German government and Dutch Railway offer some financial compensation to victims. But they require documentation. Looking at the marketing materials, however, one might think that Ancestry was the first entity to digitize Holocaust records, said Yonah Bex, an archivist in Los Angeles.And even though Ancestry is offering these materials at no cost, Bex said she was skeptical that the company was motivated by altruism.
For Silverman, the genealogist, motivation is irrelevant. Ancestry maintains one of the largest databases of DNA profiles and family history data in the world, making more than $1 billion in revenue in 2017 alone, according to the company site. Its financial model is built on getting millions of people to subscribe to its family history sites and pay for its DNA tests.
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