Dear members, Christmas time is almost here and I'm sure you are all doing your shopping and filling the Christmas lists. How bout adding Rootsweb to your Christmas list this year? Why should we make a donation to Rootsweb? Well without Rootsweb we wouldn't have this mailing list. I'm sure many of you remember last year when Maiser (the former host for mailing list)was hit by massive spam and crashed. Oh man it was sad to have empty mailboxes, till Rootsweb stepped in and let us start mailing list to their service. Rootsweb installed a spam blocker this year to keep all spam off the list. As the one who receives this blocked mail, I've seen a great deal of spam being blocked from this mailing list. I'm sure those of you on AOL are glad to not have to delete any more spam. Also thru the year Rootsweb has had a few crashes due to spam but have been able to keep the mail going due to Around the clock maintenance. Rootsweb is also the one we need to Thank for USGENWEB and WORLDGENWEB. These sites are valueable for our research in states counties and other parts of the world. Plus we have the archives, surname searches,census and tombstone projects to help in our searches thanks to Rootsweb. Now they would like to add more but can't unless more join the Cooperative. Currently rootsweb is supported by only 2-5% of it's users, they need more like 25-50% for the resources needed. Want to help? Here's how you can support them and remember them for Christmas (a Time for sharing what they do for us all year long); WANT TO HELP BRING MORE GENEALOGICAL RESOURCES ONLINE? RootsWeb is entirely community-supported: your membership is crucial in enabling RootsWeb to continue to add more genealogical data, Web sites, and mailing lists. The degree of community support directly affects RootsWeb's ability to grow. For details about levels of RootsWeb membership and sponsorship, please visit: <http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html>. Thanks for listening to me, Lisa Cleversey List Owner -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Co-List Owner COOK, List Owner BIRD & NYSTEUBE (Steuben Co NY) Heartland/Fields Community Leader -2500-2999 Heartland Genealogy Society & Web Ring Co-Chairman-http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/2416 cleversey's Home Page-http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/5421 cleversey@geocities.com -Icq #9492621