If it is true that Findagrave has been bought by ancestry, then we all have been played for fools. Ancestry would want it for only one reason- to make money off our free labor. Just think of that- we were all duped into making someone rich with our free labor, walking cemeteries and taking photos, when we could have just put that on our own sites. Do you reckon that soon ancestry will make it a pay site to view it like they did with the SSDI? There is something I have done with cemetery data that attracts visitors in spite of Findagrave. I write a complete history of the cemetery, all the tombstone data, and then add several paragraphs of who the deceased's family were and any information I can find about them. What we put on ALHN will remain free and stay here if we make our sites Legacy sites. A commercial site cannot be trusted. If we shy away from putting information on our sites, giving up to commercial sites, soon we'll have to quit, and that's Ancestry's goal. They buy out the competition and out pace the smaller sites to make them quit. Eventually every court record will be on ancestry, too. Maybe if we quit paying, and quit putting photos on findagrave ourselves, we won't be the cause of our own failure, and free genealogy will have a chance. We have willingly participated in our own downfall. I say put everything you have on your own site and make ALHN grow. in the end, if both sites have the info, we stand a chance. If we keep limiting ourselves, we will keep being pushed backwards. David Johnson On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 8:47 PM, <SherryeW@aol.com> wrote: > Joyce, this isn't disagreeing with me at all. I agree courthouse records > online would be a wonderful thing for ALHN sites. These are the kind of > things that would be very useful to a genealogist and would make them come > back to our websites. Hard to find records of any kind would be great for > ALHN pages. I just think cemetery records are not going to attract > people to > small websites anymore when a major cemetery website already exists > offering a "one-stop shopping experience". I never used Find-A-Grave > until this > past summer when I found some ancestors on the site. Now I have been > putting all my info on that site. If you are not familiar with > Find-A-Grave, > there is a place for the birth and death info, a space for adding the > tombstone inscription, a place for a biography if you want, a place to > add the lot > number/GPS info, a place to add tombstone photos or any other photos of > the person, a place to add a memorial with your name so other cousins can > contact you, and in my opinion the best feature is that you can link > spouses > and children to each page and so create an online family tree of burial > sites. It is much more "usable" than a page of typed cemetery info. I > feel the > future of ALHN is not in adding more census or cemeteries, but to create a > niche of offering hard to find local records/photos/bios that just aren't > available anywhere else. > > Sherrye > > In a message dated 11/15/2013 11:07:50 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, > jgreece55@gmail.com writes: > > Sherry, I agree with your statements to a point but here is my > disagreement. I research in a region of counties....Hamilton > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Everyone went through this when Ancestry acquired Rootsweb. There was mass panic, and yet Rootsweb is still going strong and free. As for SSDI, I believe it is still free on Rootsweb as is the 1880 census (agreement with the LDS church). If you think they are making themselves rich on your less than $10 a day for 24/7 access to world wide records, then you are fooling yourselves. Just think of the cost of all the servers, the scanners, the manpower, the IT techs, etc, that provide viewers with scanned images of the originals, whether it be census, city directories (which are coming on line more and more), vital records etc. They are expanding into foreign countries and will be doing more in the future. I happen to be home bound 24/7 and cannot go to do the research I used to. Trust me, the $299/yr for their membership is far less than what we were paying for rental of microfilm rolls at the local LDS library. And we were limited to when we could use the library. There is still a lot of data to be put on line in every one of our states and counties. That data is in the form of courthouse records, old newspapers, and yes some cemetery lists. Panic if you want, I for one am glad that it happened. The founder and owner of FAG in his letter to contributors explains how it had grown beyond his capacity to keep it up. He is still there, heading it up, but now with the money and resources of AC to back him. I believe what changes what will come from AC will be enhancements. Mary WY CO -----Original Message----- From: David Johnson Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2013 1:10 AM To: ALHN-GENERAL Subject: Re: [ALHN-GENERAL] cemetery info on ALHN If it is true that Findagrave has been bought by ancestry, then we all have been played for fools. Ancestry would want it for only one reason- to make money off our free labor. Just think of that- we were all duped into making someone rich with our free labor, walking cemeteries and taking photos, when we could have just put that on our own sites. Do you reckon that soon ancestry will make it a pay site to view it like they did with the SSDI? There is something I have done with cemetery data that attracts visitors in spite of Findagrave. I write a complete history of the cemetery, all the tombstone data, and then add several paragraphs of who the deceased's family were and any information I can find about them. What we put on ALHN will remain free and stay here if we make our sites Legacy sites. A commercial site cannot be trusted. If we shy away from putting information on our sites, giving up to commercial sites, soon we'll have to quit, and that's Ancestry's goal. They buy out the competition and out pace the smaller sites to make them quit. Eventually every court record will be on ancestry, too. Maybe if we quit paying, and quit putting photos on findagrave ourselves, we won't be the cause of our own failure, and free genealogy will have a chance. We have willingly participated in our own downfall. I say put everything you have on your own site and make ALHN grow. in the end, if both sites have the info, we stand a chance. If we keep limiting ourselves, we will keep being pushed backwards. David Johnson On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 8:47 PM, <SherryeW@aol.com> wrote: > Joyce, this isn't disagreeing with me at all. I agree courthouse records > online would be a wonderful thing for ALHN sites. These are the kind of > things that would be very useful to a genealogist and would make them > come > back to our websites. Hard to find records of any kind would be great > for > ALHN pages. I just think cemetery records are not going to attract > people to > small websites anymore when a major cemetery website already exists > offering a "one-stop shopping experience". I never used Find-A-Grave > until this > past summer when I found some ancestors on the site. Now I have been > putting all my info on that site. If you are not familiar with > Find-A-Grave, > there is a place for the birth and death info, a space for adding the > tombstone inscription, a place for a biography if you want, a place to > add the lot > number/GPS info, a place to add tombstone photos or any other photos of > the person, a place to add a memorial with your name so other cousins can > contact you, and in my opinion the best feature is that you can link > spouses > and children to each page and so create an online family tree of burial > sites. It is much more "usable" than a page of typed cemetery info. I > feel the > future of ALHN is not in adding more census or cemeteries, but to create a > niche of offering hard to find local records/photos/bios that just aren't > available anywhere else. > > Sherrye > > In a message dated 11/15/2013 11:07:50 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, > jgreece55@gmail.com writes: > > Sherry, I agree with your statements to a point but here is my > disagreement. I research in a region of counties....Hamilton > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ALHN-GENERAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message