Allen has made substantial contributions to the field of genealogy. He co-founded ancestry.com in 1997 and was its first CEO. He also served in several major roles, including VP Marketing, before leaving the company in 2002.

Allen is currently the CEO of World Vital Records, Inc., with a goal to provide access to billions of high quality records from all around the world to people who are doing genealogy and family history research. World Vital Records, Inc. also recently launched FamilyLink.com a free, social network for genealogists and families.

He also recently received the Utah Genealogical Association (UGA) Fellow award at the 2007 UGA Annual Genealogical Conference held in Salt Lake City.

Allen has been an entrepreneur since 1990 when he co-founded Infobases with Dan Taggart. Infobases was a successful CD-ROM publisher of religious and educational CD ROMs that made the Inc. 500 in 1996.