FindmyPast's new brand refresh campaign

From FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk):

Findmypast encourages people to delve deeper into their family history with brand refresh

•    New brand campaign unveiled by Findmypast encourages members to delve deeper into their family history
•    Findmypast’s product features and rich body of records and newspaper content allows users to gain a greater understanding of their ancestors’ lives, reflected in the new brand tagline “Your family history understood”
•    Rooted in British and Irish culture, Findmypast offers a vast, rich archive with trusted partners such as the British Library and National Archives, from their headquarters in the UK.
•    New subscription options support researchers at all levels of their family history journey, from beginner to expert

UK family history website, Findmypast, has unveiled a fresh new brand campaign to align with their brand mission to help people better understand their family history. Launching today, the campaign inspires users to look beyond just dates and names and delve deeper into their family tree to gain a greater understanding of the lives their ancestors lived and how they were shaped by the world around them.

Findmypast’s new brand campaign is an expression of their unique position as a UK-based family history company. It follows a period of significant investment in the digitisation and data extraction of millions of newspaper pages, ongoing acquisition of rich record sets, and major product innovation that enables Findmypast to surface contextual stories and allow users to build up a more in-depth picture of their family history.

The new brand campaign features two real-life stories uncovered using the site: those of Audrey Thompson, a champion Women’s Land Army Rat Catcher, and Archibald McKenzie, one of millions of migrants who escaped the Irish Potato Famine to seek a better life in Liverpool.

These stories demonstrate that discovering a fact on a record or a name in a tree is just the beginning of your family history journey; a world of rich historical details awaits as you build a detailed picture of the lives your ancestors lived and the world around them. This deeper experience is articulated through the new tagline: “Your family history understood”. The campaign will include major media activity launched across print, broadcast, digital and social media platforms.

Helen Kaye, Director of Brand for Findmypast said: “Family history is an incredibly powerful hobby, but the meaning from this hobby comes from the understanding of what the world in which your ancestor lived was like back then. What jobs did they do, what was going on in the world around them, what was their day-to-day existence really like? Only by painting that picture can you understand why they lived the lives they did. And thanks to our clever hint technology and extensive newspaper archive, Findmypast will help you delve deeper to gain that deeper understanding.”

Over the past five years, Findmypast has launched major developments to its product, enabling members to delve deeper into the past and offering support at every stage of the journey. This includes a sophisticated and easy-to-use tree builder, helpful hint function integrating newspaper Family Notices extracted from their UK newspaper archive, a popular Collections feature to clip, store, and share articles, an on-the-go companion app, and a new map component showcasing key places and moments in your ancestors’ lives.

Alongside this, Findmypast continuously invests in publishing major record sets and millions of newspaper pages with trusted partners like The National Archives and the British Library. These include some of the most iconic British brands like Country Life and Tatler, to enrich family history research and build a better understanding of your ancestors’ world.

Supporting customers has always been a cornerstone of Findmypast’s ethos, and the brand update places this squarely at the heart of the experience. Helpful blog content giving insights into historical events and elements of family history, educational quizzes on the Findmypast app, and further feature developments will support researchers to get a deeper understanding of their ancestors’ lives.

Recent updates to subscription plans – simplified to a basic free option, Family Tree option for new starters, and Everything package for confident family historians – also support researchers at every stage of their family history journey. This was the result of significant customer research that showed members wanted a more flexible and supportive approach to their subscription.

Sarah Bush, Managing Director of Findmypast said: “This is an exciting next step in Findmypast’s evolution as we aim to help more people understand family history research. Our investment in the product over the last six years has been significant and now with our new tiered subscription packages, we can help users be as successful as possible in the hobby from novice to expert. As a British and Irish family history company we are uniquely placed to share our contextual expertise with users from all over the globe and our new brand positioning will be a key strategic pillar as we continue to grow.”

On site, users will notice a simplified colour scheme, focusing on the distinct dark blue, coral and ochre, offering a cleaner look and bringing in clear signposting elements. A new look homepage gives a simple point of entry, helping users navigate easily around the site, alongside minor tweaks to the layout of key pages.

These changes are just the latest step in Findmypast’s drive to improve the experiences of all its users. Members can expect to see a variety of new features and record releases launched throughout 2025.

(Thanks to Maddy Gilbert)

Chris

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