Declaration Descendants
Customer stories
To create intrigue for what you might unlock in your past, we shared inspiring stories about what customers have unlocked in theirs. In our first film, Courtney McKinney’s finds strength in her ancestor, warrior Yaa Asantawaa, who returns from battle to challenge the leaders of the Ashanti empire, saying “If you the men of Ashanti will not go forward, then we will. We the women will.”
In another customer story, Heidi Choiniere discovers her wild side through the story of her ancestor - a prohibition-era bootlegger who is arrested in the dead of night, while brewing booze in a bathtub.
And finally, we told the story of how Joseph Reece found reslience through his Cherokee ancestors who were pushed out of their homeland, forcibly relocated along the snow-covered Trail of Tears.
Where greatness comes from
Then, while former President Donald Trump was pledging to make America great again, yet denying immigration from countries whose citizens made America great in the first place, we leveraged an Olympic moment to act. Using AncestryDNA, we uncovered the genealogy of some of America's greatest sporting heroes - the famed Miracle on Ice team - to show that immigration is an important part of where America’s greatness comes from.
The campaign took every opportunity to encourage Americans to look into their past, with the hope that it would inspire a better future.
