Ms Annelies van den Belt:

I am present on behalf of findmypast Ireland to convince the committee that more records digitised with the rights partners create a vibrant global genealogy market which delivers direct and indirect benefits. findmypast Ireland is a web presence of our Irish joint venture company which brings together the best of tradition and innovation. The joint venture partner is DC Thomson, the 108 year old publishing firm from Dundee in Scotland which is well known to members as the creator of the "Dandy" and "Beano" comics. Members may not know that it also owns several family history websites with over 26 million registered users worldwide, including findmypast, Genes Reunited, British Newspaper Archive and ScotlandsPeople. It recognised the importance of local expertise in developing an Irish web service and record collection and established this joint venture with the best in the business in Ireland, Eneclann. Eneclann is a campus company at Trinity College Dublin which was founded in 1998 and offers high profile genealogical research services and a variety of heritage and digitisation services. It is well known for its partnership with many Irish cultural institutions. Representatives of the two partners are here with me.

We launched findmypast Ireland two years ago and in that short time have created the largest online collection of Irish records, with over 70 million published to date, including wills, newspapers, prison records, land records, etc. We expect to double this number in a shorter duration. There is much I can tell the committee about our joint venture company and the DC Thomson family history business in general, but I will refer it to our submission and focus on some key issues in the limited time I have available.

Our success has been built on partnerships, specifically on developing partnership models which exceed expectations. What does this mean in practice and what defines a successful partnership? Our submission gives a number of concrete examples in the appendices and members will notice that the nature of the relationships we have with partners varies enormously, depending on their priorities. For example, one of our biggest challenges was when we won the contract to release the 1911 census in England and Wales on a commercial basis with a royalty to the National Archives. Rather like the 1926 census here, these records were still stored in their original collection boxes, with no archival finding aids. Within 18 months we had arranged the collection, taken 16 million digital images, transcribed 36 million entries and published them online. A total of 3.4 million people successfully searched the site within the first 24 hours, which is a testament to the stability of our technology and marketing. By contrast, in the United States when we were faced with the enormous challenge of releasing the 1940 census, we worked with a consortium of organisations, including the government archives, National Archives and Records Administration, non-commercial bodies such as FamilySearch and other commercial copies such as Archives.com. Together we created a part cloud-sourced solution which indexed the 136 million records and published them online for free within six months of release of the images. In Ireland we have developed a vibrant relationship with the National Archives of Ireland which is committed to free access. We are digitising and indexing the principal genealogical records for release online for free from the moment they are published. We are also publishing another 100 million records initially commercially but which will be made available free after five years. To date, we have digitised 40 million records and published 20 million, with five million being made available for free early in 2014. There are many examples in our submission of other relationship types which mix elements of free and commercial access.

Ireland has been successful at fostering entrepreneurship and encouraging significant international companies to base themselves in Dublin. With some good decisions, we could turn Dublin into a global hub for family history in Europe, fostering ancestral tourism, technological innovation, employment and tax revenues, as demonstrated in Salt Lake City in the United States. Having encouraged companies such as ours and Ancestry.com to base themselves here, it raises the question of what Ireland is going to do with us.