About Hero
About Hero
About American Ancestors
Our Mission
To advance the study of family history in America and beyond, we educate, inspire, and connect people through our scholarship, collections, and expertise.
American Ancestors® is a national nonprofit center for family history, heritage & culture based in Boston, Massachusetts, that has been setting the gold standard for family history research since its founding in 1845.
Today, American Ancestors serves more than 400,000 members and online subscribers through AmericanAncestors.org, one of the world’s largest online collections of free family history resources, scholarship, educational programming and events.
Databases
AmericanAncestors.org provides access to billions of records spanning the United States, the British Isles, continental Europe, and beyond, including one of the most extensive online collections of early American genealogical records, the largest searchable collection of published genealogical research journals and magazines, and the only online source for records from Boston's Catholic Archdiocese.
Membership
Whether you're a family historian, history buff, art lover or antiquarian, we have data, programs, and services you won't find anywhere else. We are dedicated to helping our members research their own family history through our datasets, educational programs, exhibitions, and other inspirational experiences. A membership is the key to unlocking access more than a billion searchable names, award-winning publications, unique materials, and personal help from experts and support staff.
Education
We provide exclusive, in-depth learning opportunities online and in person, including lectures, seminars, intensive research programs, tours, and special events designed to benefit family history researchers of all levels.
Expert Help
Our expert staff of researchers and genealogists are among the most respected and advanced in the profession. Ask a Genealogist, our free online chat service, allows family historians to ask short research or history questions and get real-time answers from our experts. We also provide in-depth research assistance with our Personal Genealogist for the Day service and research-for-hire projects.
Research Center
Named by USA Today as a top 10 world destination for family history, all are invited to visit our eight-story research center, library and archive where we offer the largest collection of original family history research materials in the country. Our growing collection dates from the fourteenth century to the present and spans North America, Europe, and beyond.
Original Scholarship
We produce significant original research and scholarly publications in genealogy, including the longest continually published academic journal in the field, the quarterly New England Historical and Genealogical Register. We also publish the quarterly American Ancestors magazine, the Vita Brevis blog, the Weekly Genealogist email newsletter, and up to twenty print publications per year. These books include study project compilations like Robert Charles Anderson's Great Migration to New England series, research handbooks like the Genealogist's Handbook for Irish Research, Pilgrim researcher Sue Allan's popular books, and many other titles of special interest to seasoned genealogists and novice family historians alike.
Books under our Newbury Street Press imprint are researched and written by our six expert genealogists, then produced by our in-house team of four as beautiful, high-quality scholarly volumes that will be key genealogical resources for many years to come.