Ancestry.com's New Look Launches!

Ancestry's product development and marketing teams spent more than 18 months personally visiting with and surveying Ancestry members to identify their family history research priorities. Following on those visits, we created innovative new and enhanced web site features to address members' priorities and make their research more effective and efficient.

Some of the enhancements and new features include:

• A "Recent Activity" section on the Ancestry home page will allow members to easily pick up where they last left off their research.
• Enhanced integration between searching records and saving results will allow faster documentation and organization of discoveries.
• Improved contextual search tips will make it easier to track down hard-to-find ancestors.
• New tutorials will help guide members and help them make the most of Ancestry.
• Connecting with other people researching their family stories in Ancestry's new Community section will be more straightforward. Members will be able to share information and ask questions by using a variety of community tools, message boards and a member directory.
• A new worldwide Ancestry connection service, together with member profiles, means it will be easier and faster to connect with people who have similar research interests.
  

The site definitely has a new look and feel, but the ability to connect more easily with those wanting to research the same family lines offers a tremendous benefit to users. Another notable new feature is the 'shoebox', which allows you to save images and records and come back to them later for review.

Important Affiliate Program Updates

New Commission Structure

Beginning October 1, 2005 the following commission structure will apply. Note: this is not a promotion or effective for a predetermined time. This is the new commission structure for the program and applies to all affiliates.

Monthly Sales	Commission Rate
Up to $999	15%
$1,000 - $2,499	20%
$2,500 - $4,999	25%
$5,000 - $9,999	30%
$10,000 +	35%

Cookie Duration Change

Beginning October 1, 2005 the affiliate cookie duration will change to 60 days. This applies to all affiliates in the MyFamily Affiliate Network.

As the affiliate program continues to grow, the program policies will be updated to foster this growth. In this case, it was time to update the cookie duration policy to match other sales channels within the company and the industry.

MyFamily Aids Katrina Survivors in Finding Homes

We are very excited to announce that MyFamily is launching a major initiative to assist families – literally connecting families – that have been driven from their homes due to the devastation of hurricane Katrina.

We have partnered with a non-profit agency, KatrinaHousing.org, to assist displaced families in finding temporary homes to live in while they look at rebuilding existing homes or relocating.

What is it? Katrina Housing is a housing services hub for Katrina victims. Volunteers nationwide can offer up housing space for victims, and hurricane survivors can search for available rooms/houses/apts/etc. This site is working in cooperation with other support organizations. www.katrinahousing.org

How it works - Volunteers go online or call an 800# and offer a home/room/apt. Information is collected in a database. Survivors of Katrina can also log on to the site or call an 800# and request housing. Matches are then made according to a list of criteria such as location, size of home, available timetable.

How is MyFamily helping? MyFamily is temporarily turning part of our call center into a call center for the survivors of Katrina.

- Katrina Housing will route incoming phone calls to a phone number at our call center.

- We will have MyFamily employees taking calls from survivors that are looking for temporary housing

- We will begin taking calls beginning TODAY and continue through Sept. 30.

- Another call center in Indiana will be taking calls from volunteers offering their homes/apts. and the matching will take place via database matching!

We will also continue to evaluate additional opportunities as they relate to our mission of connecting families.

We Need Your Input!

The MyFamily Affiliate Team is working hard to create new opportunities for affiliates. As a result, we are currently researching and developing the possibility of offering a 2-day Affiliate Conference, open to all affiliates. In determining if this would be a success, we are seeking your response to this short survey.

To take the survey, please click here:

http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB224LVFHBQEH

Your feedback is extremely important and greatly appreciated.

FREE Access to 1901 UK Census Index

The 1901 UK Census INDEX will be available for free to all visitors to both Ancestry.co.uk AND Ancestry.com for the entire month of September.

New Ancestry.com affiliate links are available in Reporting.net for this promotion, under Create Links>Promotions. And new Ancestry.co.uk affiliate links are available at CJ.com, under Get Links>By Relationship>View Links for Ancestry.co.uk>Additional Search Options>Hot Products.

Our affiliates have been given the FIRST opportunity to promote this, so don't miss out!