logo - brightsolid 200Brightsolid online publishing, the UK company behind findmypast (UK, US, Aus & Ire), ScotlandsPeople, The British Newspaper Archive, 1911Census, 1901 Census Online, Genes Reunited, and FriendsReunited may not be a name you’ve heard of. But the chances of you having used one or more of their sites is quite high, so this is news I thought I’d share.

As of now brightsolid online publishing have now changed their name to “DC Thomson Family History”. As their parent company is DC Thompson who are a media company, creating this new entity is seen as a significant move to continue their presence in the world of family history.

Some extracts from their Press Release are below:

New CEO, Annelies van den Belt has revealed that the business will be renamed DC Thomson Family History, to align with its Dundee-based media company owner and to focus on its core business, leading digital family history brands: findmypast and Genes Reunited.

The core focus on the family history market means that Friends Reunited will be re-incubated elsewhere in the DC Thomson Group.

“At the heart of this name change and new structure is the recognition that we are a global digital family history business, headquartered in Shoreditch, supported by centres of excellence in London, Dundee, Sydney, Dublin and Boston. The new structure will go hand-in-hand with a new name, DC Thomson Family History. In my view this name reflects all that we stand for – our core strength is family history and we are an integral part of a long-standing family business.”

DC Thomson Family History owns findmypast and Genes Reunited – two of the largest genealogy businesses in Europe – and recently launched in the US. The company has successfully developed partnerships with a host of major cultural and historical institutions that are digitising and making available parts of their archives, including the Imperial War Museum, The National Archives and The British Library.

You can read the full Press Release here.

While I don’t believe the name change will change anything for the end user, it does signify the company is in it for the long haul, and by restructuring it is aiming to increase their records and marketshare.