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Family Tree Flashback

By Allison Dolan Premium

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We genealogists are hooked on researching our ancestors’ lives and times: how they worked and played, what they ate and drank, who they associated with and what was important to them. We marvel at how much the world has changed since our ancestors were crossing cities by carriage and building sod homes on the frontier.
 
So much of our attention is on the distant past that it’s easy to overlook how much the world has changed in our own lifetimes. But Family Tree Magazine’s 10th anniversary gave us the occasion to do just that. Join us for a look back at what’s changed—in genealogy and the world at large—since January 2000, the date of our premiere issue.
 
PRICES
Then
Gallon of unleaded gasoline: $1.57
Barrel of oil: $23
Loaf of bread: 93 cents
First-class postage stamp: 33 cents
Annual tuition to a public university: $3,508
Ancestry.com subscription: $59.95 per year or $19.95 for three months for 1,800 databases containing 500 million names

NARA photocopying fees: $17 for a Civil War service record; $40 for a pension file
 

Now
Gallon of unleaded gasoline: $2.50
Barrel of oil: $75
Loaf of bread: $1.77
First-class postage stamp: 44 cents
Annual tuition to a public university: $6,585
Ancestry.com subscription: $155.40 a year for US membership or $299.95 a year for World membership

NARA photocopying fees: $25 for a Civil War service record; $75 for a pension file (up to 100 pages)
 
POPULAR TV SHOWS
Then
“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”
“Survivor”
“Big Brother”
“Malcolm in the Middle”

Now
“American Idol”
“CSI:”
“Grey’s Anatomy”

“The Office”
 
GENEALOGY HEADLINES
Then
PBS’ “Ancestors” sequel airs
Mattel, A&E, Hearst Interactive and other partners form Genealogy.com
Broderbund releases Family Tree Maker version 7
Library of Congress marks 200th birthday
2000 US census campaign emphasizes confidentiality
Bryan Sykes launches Oxford Ancestors, the first genetic-genealogy company; BYU begins its Molecular Genealogy Research Project
Ancestry.com parent company MyFamily.com buys RootsWeb
Ancestry.com posts its first digitized census records online, spawning a census race with HeritageQuest and Genealogy.com
OneGreatFamily.com is the first online family tree database to search for matching ancestors automatically and “graft” them onto your tree

Now
Ancestry.com files for initial public stock offering
FamilySearch slowly rolls out “New FamilySearch”
Volunteers work to index records through Ancestry.com World Archives Project and FamilySearch
Libraries face severe budget cuts

BREAKING NEWS
Then
World survives Y2K
George W. Bush is elected president
Tiger Woods wins his first US Open
Sydney, Australia, hosts the Summer Olympic Games
New York Yankees beat their cross-town counterparts, the Mets, in baseball’s World Series
St. Louis Rams beat Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl
AOL purchases Time Warner
Terrorists attack the USS Cole
Peanuts creator Charles Schulz and entertainers Victor Borge, Tito Puente and Walter Matthau die
“I love you” virus disrupts computers worldwide
Scientists decode human genome

Now
World braces for H1N1 epidemic
Home sales fall
GM and Chrysler emerge from bankruptcy
Five states’ jobless rates top 12 percent
Iran tests long-range missiles
Author John Updike, newscaster Walter Cronkite, entertainer Ed McMahon and “King of Pop” Michael Jackson die
Rio de Janeiro selected to host 2016 Summer Olympics
Devastating earthquakes strike American Samoa and Indonesia
Health care debate rages

President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
 
In a decade of Family Tree Magazine, we’ve published …
78 issues
11 CDs
7 webinars
920+ blog posts
6,250+ pages
320+ e-newsletters

18 podcasts
 
From the January 2010 10th anniversary issue of Family Tree Magazine

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