Ancestry.com adds mobile apps for iPhone, iPad

A neat press release from Ancestry.com today. Doesn't do much for my Blackberry but others will enjoy this. 

New ‘Ancestry.com Mobile’ iOS App Gives Users the Ability to Access Billions of Historical Records to Build Their Family Tree

PROVO, UTAH (November 29, 2011) – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced the availability of a new, upgraded version of its Ancestry.com Mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with features designed to enable more rewarding discoveries as users build, update and share their family trees. The Ancestry.com mobile app, which to-date has been downloaded more than 1.7 million times, is now available for free from the Apple App Store.

This upgrade adds three new features to Ancestry.com’s existing family history app:

Ø  “In-app purchasing,” which allows non-Ancestry.com subscribers to view, then buy fascinating historical records about their ancestors – such as World War I draft cards, Census records, birth/death certificates, and school yearbook photos, from among billions of historical documents in the Ancestry.com database

Ø  A “Shaky Leaf” hinting feature that employs predictive analytics to suggest possible new connections between a user’s family tree and undiscovered documents in the world’s largest family history database

Ø  A new merge feature, which automatically identifies and extracts information about family members from historical records so users can quickly and easily update their family tree

“Our goal with the new Ancestry.com mobile app is to enable more people to discover their family history through our billions of historic records, and allow them to share their findings easily with others,” said Eric Shoup, Senior Vice President of Product at Ancestry.com. “Our ‘Shaky Leaf’ hinting feature has resulted in tens of millions of successful family history discoveries online and it’s now accessible to our growing mobile user base.”

For users new to Ancestry.com, the latest iOS app provides an easy way to get started by giving access to relevant historical documents on the site without a subscription.  For existing Ancestry.com members, the new app gives them the ability to grow their tree using Ancestry.com records and share them with others while on-the-go.

The Ancestry.com mobile app offers many of the most popular features available in the online version of Ancestry.com’s industry-leading family history website, including the ability to add and edit family information, view and share documents and photos, take and attach photos and create and navigate multi-generational family trees.

To get started, download the free Ancestry.com mobile app to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and either register for a new, or log in to an existing Ancestry.com account and choose a family tree. Ancestry.com subscribers can download family history records in the app free of charge. Non-subscribers pay a special introductory price starting at $0.99 for each record purchased through the Mobile app’s “in-app purchase” feature.