Dear List Members, I would imagine that you have by now heard MyFamily.com is buying or has bought out Rootsweb.com. Information is listed below. I don't think it is cause for any great concern. Sandy Ancestry Daily News--Special Edition http://www.ancestry.com/DailyNews Brought to you by the publishers of "The Source" and "Ancestry" Magazine http://www.ancestry.com ========================================================= 21 June 2000 SPECIAL EDITION ----- MyFamily.com and RootsWeb.com Join Forces: Alliance Allows Free Genealogy to Continue on the Web ============================================================ MYFAMILY.COM AND ROOTSWEB.COM JOIN FORCES <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> =========================================================== MyFamily.com, Inc., the leading online family network, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire RootsWeb.com, the oldest and largest free community genealogy site. RootsWeb.com will continue to be free to all users and will maintain its own unique URL at http://www.rootsweb.com. "This is truly a winning combination for both organizations and for the millions of users who make up our audiences," said Greg Ballard, CEO of MyFamily.com, Inc. The union will provide RootsWeb.com with the financial backing to expand and the business structure needed to focus on preserving, sharing, and exchanging family history records. As part of the MyFamily.com network of sites, the RootsWeb.com site will be able continue its tradition of free access to information with additional technology tools, increased family research content, and a greater range of genealogical resources. "RootsWeb.com fits well with the MyFamily.com vision of creating the largest and most active online resource for families and family history research," said Dr. Brian Leverich, founder of RootsWeb.com. "This agreement will expand the number of RootsWeb.com users and content contributors. At the same time, we have ensured that RootsWeb.com content, services, mailing lists, and Web pages will remain free, while allowing the site to provide more functionality and resources to a larger audience as a result of our being part of the MyFamily.com network." Ancestry.com, part of the MyFamily.com network, has a seventeen-year history of publishing award-winning books, magazines, and CDs, and currently offers more than 600 million records and over 2,500 databases. More than half of the data is freely accessible to all Web users. Ancestry.com also hosts, free of charge, the Ancestry World Tree and Online Family Tree software, which allow users to connect and collaborate with other researchers who are working on the same lines. Ancestry.com users retain ownership of their data, and the company pledges never to charge for access to that data or to publish it. For those who prefer to keep their information a little closer to home, sister site MyFamily.com allows users to create free, private sites that can be used to post family history data, share news and photos with family, chat online, and much more. RootsWeb.com is a valuable resource for family historians, with interactive guides, discussion lists, and numerous tools for tracing one's ancestry; it hosts more than 17,000 independently authored Web sites and about 19,000 mailing lists. All of these services will remain free to users. As part of its ongoing commitment to the genealogical community, MyFamily.com, Inc. will also continue to support RootsWeb.com-affiliated volunteer, non-profit organizations, such as The USGenWeb Project, Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild, The Free Births, Marriages, and Deaths Projects, and other groups that provide free genealogical content. The MyFamily.com acquisition of RootsWeb.com promises to make it easier than ever for family historians everywhere to discover their heritage. For the full press release, see http://www.ancestry.com/home/celebrate/rootsrelease.htm. MYFAMILY.COM, INC. URLs: Ancestry.com http://www.ancestry.com MyFamily.com http://www.myfamily.com FamilyHistory.com http://www.familyhistory.com Ancestry World Tree http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/usersub/worldtree/main.htm FGS Society Hall http://www.familyhistory.com/societyhall/main.asp Ancestry.com Library http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/main.htm ROOTSWEB.COM URLS RootsWeb.com http://www.rootsweb.com WorldConnect Project http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/ International Black Sheep Society http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~blksheep/ International Internet Genealogical Society http://iigs.rootsweb.com/ Obituary Daily Times http://www.rootsweb.com/~obituary/ INDEPENDENT ORGANIZATIONS/PROJECTS HOSTED AT ROOTSWEB.COM The USGenWeb Project http://www.USGenWeb.org The WorldGenWeb Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~wggenweb/index.html Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild http://ISTG.rootsweb.com The Free Births, Marriages, and Deaths Projects http://FreeBMD.rootsweb.com Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet http://www.cyndislist.com/ ******************************************************************** Keep in touch with your family and share information and data with a FREE MyFamily.com site. Sign up now for your site at: http://www.myfamily.com/banner.asp?id=ancnewsfooter ******************************************************************** Search Ancestry's World Tree--the largest, free database of family files available on the Internet! Add your family tree today! http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/usersub/worldtree/main.htm ============================================================ <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Best Wishes, Juliana Smith, Editor, Ancestry Daily News Megan Vandre, Associate Editor Please feel free to circulate this newsletter to other genealogy enthusiasts! We hope that you will also credit the Daily News as the source. To subscribe to this newsletter, visit http://www.ancestry.com/ and type your e-mail address in the box provided, or send an e-mail message to: mailto:[email protected] with the word "subscribe" in the subject line. For comments or submissions to the Daily News, e-mail: mailto:[email protected] The editor regrets that she cannot respond to every e-mail or assist with personal research, but periodically will feature letters to the editor in the Daily News. Ancestry.com reserves the right to edit for content and clarity. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> ******************************************************************** Ancestry http://www.ancestry.com Sales: 1-800-ANCESTRY Customer Solutions: 801-431-5220 Fax: (801) 426-3501 E-mail: mailto:[email protected]