Data Mining the Deceased:
Ancestry and the Business of Family
Julia Creet Director, Producer (2017, 56 mins. HD)

Genealogy is the largest historical enterprise in the world and one of the largest data mining operations, driven by the Mormons, Ancestry.com and genetic genealogy testing companies. Data Mining the Deceased explores the industry behind the exponential intensity of genealogy, raising some key questions: What are the motivations of the key players and how are their ambitions affecting the millions of North Americans who are searching for answers? And, should we be concerned about the ownership and privacy of personal data in the international flow and aggregation of vast quantities of vital information about the living and the dead. Integral to the question of family history, “Data Mining the Deceased” asks: What is family?