Ancestry.com parent sold for $300 million

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Generations Network Inc (TGN), parent company of Ancestry.com, said on Wednesday that Spectrum Equity Investors will lead an investment of $300 million to buy a majority stake in the company.

Spectrum, a Menlo Park, California-based private equity firm with $4 billion in investments, has been a shareholder in TGN since 2003. Its portfolio includes a variety of financial services, media and communications companies.

Additional terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Ancestry.com has collected more than 5 billion names from historical records and counts 2.5 million active site members.

TGN owns a portfolio of sites including Ancestry.com and related international sites, myfamily.com, Rootsweb.com and Genealogy.com. Other products include Family Tree Maker software and Ancestry Magazine.

Ancestry.com, RootsWeb and myfamily.com rank as the second, third- and fourth-largest U.S. "family lifestyle" sites, according to Web traffic measurement company Hitwise. Rival Legacy.com is the No. 1 ranked U.S. site, Hitwise data shows.

TGN properties have more than 900,000 paying subscribers and receive 8.2 million monthly visitors worldwide, according to the company, which cited comScore data for August.

Current management will continue to lead the company. Following the deal, Vic Parker and Ben Spero from Spectrum will serve on the company's new board of directors, along with Tim Sullivan, president and chief executive of TGN.

The acquisition is subject to customary regulatory and closing conditions and is expected to close in 2007.

Ancestry.com recently introduced the largest collections of U.S. military records and African-American historical records.

On Tuesday, it introduced a DNA testing service that requires consumers to submit a sample of their personal genetic data with a cheek-swab, analyze and then compare it to DNA Ancestry's database of family histories.

The service offers two versions of the DNA test. One, called Y-DNA is priced at $149 and tests the Y chromosome passed from father to son. The second test, mtDNA, costs $199 and tests mitochondrial DNA, which mothers pass to children.