I am sending this on to all my lists as I feel this is an important message. It is also important to your research. I myself have 4 counties and 5 mailing list (and have applied for another one) that Rootsweb donates space and availability. I have unlimited webspace for each county. They do not give "commercials" each time you visit a site that is sponsored by Rootsweb. I do not send you the email I recieve from Brian and Karen when something has gone wrong with the equipment and explaining why there may be problems. But there are many times that no sleep is gotten due to working on the equipment to keep the sites going during peak times. I would not be sending this to you if I did not support Rootsweb myself. It is easier for me to make a donation in the month of Jan. - has a lot to do with memory but not old age creeping in <gr>. But I do realize with the holidays everyone might be a little strapped for money but if you could see anyway during the month of Jan. to even send $10 or $12 every little bit helps. I remember spending $10 easily just in stamps in one month much less a year and not getting half as much information as I do from the websites that Rootsweb sponsors. Thanks and hope the following helps you understand why I felt this was important. Kathy Everyone on a very limited income, those new and young genealogy researchers with young families or people who already give to RootsWeb may delete this message. For everyone else, I am begging you to listen. RootsWeb is run by a Mom and Pop operation called Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson, husband and wife. They started RootsWeb out of the money in their pockets with the server in their home. Karen works for Rand Corp fulltime and Brian, a Phd in computers, does speaking engagements and keeps RootsWeb servers, equipment "pieced" together with whatever donations comes their way. Brian is determined to keep genealogy free on the internet. Our donations haven't been enough (about 2.5% of the users of RootsWeb sites donate) so he went out after a sponsor who wouldn't have strings attached. Palladium came across but was recently bought by the biggies, I think it was the Broderbund conglommerate - forget) and the money and equipment expected from Palladium didn't make the last payment. Soooo, Brian and Karen took out a $25,000 loan recently to keep our genealogy free out here. A thought has crossed some minds that the "biggies" are trying to break Brian and Karen down in order to get B and K to sell out to them. Brian and Karen are working to go non profit so down the road maybe some major contributions and foundation money will go their way. Brian says all involved in going non profit with an atty, etc, is mind boggling. In the meantime, RootsWeb is hurting in the financial support department. Anytime you are subscribed to a list or browse/search sites for genealogy information, note the domain in the url. Does it have rootsweb in the address? I am begging you, if you can afford it, to support the RootsWeb Genealogical Cooperative. If I have helped you in anyway with your research, would you please donate $12 or $24 to RootsWeb so we can keep all this great genealogy data on the internet free and even increase the data for users? I am doing my part by being a donor. Here is the site to learn about RootsWeb and the address to donate. http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html I know with Christmas we are all pretty well tapped out, but could you find $12 or $24 or even more by Jan? Think of those little pieces of paper with ancestors names on them that Grandpa, Grandma, Dad or Mom saved for you, how they would be flabbergasted at the time it is taking you to find a ggggrandparent by way of the internet and RootsWeb. By January, we will probably find the RootsWeb servers overloaded with all the new computers received as Christmas presents. It happens every year. A side note here - this is the best time to browse while everyone is in Wally World going crazy with shopping. Better get the browsing done now because January and the increase in people going online, it inevitably slows down. Thanks for listening and thank you to anyone who will contribute to RootsWeb. Written by Gloria Frazier