General Chat

From the bottom of the GR homepage

Our sister sites
The British Newspaper Archive
Lives of the First World War
Scotland's People
Who Do You Think You Are?
1939 Register

:-S :-S :-S

Ooh er missus!

The sites have always been sister sites and I joined GR and FMP in 2003.

I don't know why it doesn't mention FMP there. However Brightsolid is no longer anything to do with GR, which belongs to DC Thomson Family History.

From FMP


Findmypast (previously DC Thomson Family History) is a British-owned world leader in online genealogy. It has an unrivalled record of online innovation in the field of family history and 18 million registered users across its family of online brands, which includes Mocavo, Genes Reunited, The British Newspaper Archive amongst others.

All site material is owned by brightsolid online publishing limited and should not be used without prior permission.

Any views expressed in message boards and members notes represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions of brightsolid online publishing limited.

© Copyright 2014 brightsolid online publishing limited.

From this site,
------------------------------------------------

Below appears at the bottom of a 1966 birth record at FMP.

© brightsolid online publishing ltd.

Both are owned by DC Thomson Family History.

http://www.dcthomsonfamilyhistory.com/about/
DC Thomson Family History is a British-owned world leader in online genealogy, with an unrivalled record of online innovation in the field of family history and 18 million registered users across its family of online brands. It hosts over 1.8 billion genealogical records across these brands, which includes household names like findmypast and Genes Reunited.

http://www.dcthomson.co.uk/companies/brightsolid

Ah, that explains it.

Brightsolid started life in 1995 known as Scotland On Line and was an internet service provider and website design company. It became Brighsolid in 2008 when it developed two distinct business streams, online publishing and technology services.

In 2013 these were split into two autonomous businesses, Brightsolid online publishing (BSOP) and Brightsolid online technology (BSOT) Both companies being wholly owned subsidiaries of DC Thomson.

BSOT provides cloud solutions and data centre services to large enterprises. It's sister its sister company BSOP is one of its customers.

Since 2013 BSOP has traded under the name of DC Thomson Family History and manages the various websites sites which include GR, FR, FMP, 1911 Census, etc They also host Scotlands People on behalf of the National Records of Scotland.

Well add those posts all together and we have a pretty good idea of who owns what. Thanks for that.

FMP used to be a separate company from GR


GR and Friends Reunited were sister sites


It was only when BrightSolid bought GR from ITV back in 2007 that GR and FMP became in the same stable ....................


special permission had to be obtained from the Competitions Bureau for BrightSolid to own 3 of the 4 major genealogy sites in Britain .................. FMP, Scotland's People and GR.

Only Ancestry remained out of their control.


The company had to promise that all of the sites would be maintained as they had been previously, and run as separate entities.


If I remember correctly, it took about a year for the purchase to be completed.

Brightsolid do not own ScotlandsPeople. It's a Scottish Government facility and Brightsolid have the current contract to operate it on their behalf.

Not quite true Denis. The ScotlandsPeople site says it is managed by DC Thomson Family History, but that organisation is now called findmypast.

Isn't the Scotish government facility GRO-Scotland? :-S

http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/

DC Thomson has very close links with the SNP in Dundee. The pivot guy is a Scottish entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl.

It is correct that they do not own Scotlands People.

As I have said, the subsidiary DC Thomson Family History host it, in otherwords provide the web infrastructure but without owning the copyright of the underlying datasets.

The wording on the SP wesite is

"A partnership between the National Records of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon enabled by DC Thomson Family History"

Still seems to be misunderstandings regarding who is what. This may clarify it:

"With a recent rebranding from brightsolid to DC Thomson Family History, it aims to be the largest UK family history library. It also has a contract to scan eight million more pages for the British Newspaper Archive."

If there are any doubts about who calls the shots at Scotlandspeople then this should make it clear:

"The service provider will deliver web design, application development, search functionality, e-commerce, testing, secure web hosting, infrastructure, website management (including further expansion) and support for the replacement service to support internet access to the official ScotlandsPeople online service (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk). The replacement service must go live to public users on 1.9.2016, when the current contract expires.
It is expected the new service provider will begin design and development of the new service from August 2015 with all testing phases completed and signed-off by the end of July 2016 in readiness for the new website service to go live on 1 September 2016, ensuring the ScotlandsPeople service to the public is seamlessly maintained from the ‘Go live' date.

Note: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Public Contracts Scotland Web Site at http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk"

if there is any misunderstanding as to who owns what .......................


may be we should lay it at the feet of the various organizations :-)


who all obfuscate who owns what, and when




There was a question on another site that I'm on as to the connection, if any between ancestry and LDS ................. usually considered as "no connection"


that is, until you start digging deeper

I think
that Genes did not become part of Brightsolid until on or after 18/3/2010