I joined one of these myfamily.com sites, I got tons of email telling me about birthdays, anniversaries, etc for people I never heard or, another choice is to upload your gedcom to world connect, or just create your own web page, I have one at angelfire that was too easy! Thanks for writing, Sandy in Florida ***REPLY TO SandraG627@aol.com*** On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, william & carrie hoffert wrote: > Once again I wish to extend the offer to any Blankenship researchers to join > the "Blankenship's of America" site established on MyFamily.com. It is a > password protected site where all participants are able to post & upload any > information, there are PHOTOS; Records for MARRIAGE, BIRTH, DEATH, > INTERMENT, and OBITS; Land Records, Historical information, Family Trees, > Descendent Charts. All of this is being posted on a SECURE location to > consolidate Blankenship information for now and the future. As many of you > know trying to have just one or 2 persons maintain such a site is > impossible....that is the beauty of this site. All can post to the site, > all can download info from the site, all can print documents & photos, > Deletion is controlled by the site administrators only (the administrators > will be changed as time goes on...after all if this is going to last into > the future it is Necessary. > > If at some time in the future we see that the site is going to be removed or > deleted I will burn all the info onto a CD until a new home can be located. > I have done the same thing for my Bias Surname and as a result we now have > one location where any Bias whose roots are in VA or WV can now enter and be > assisted to link to their ancestors. Much of the Source info is available. > Since we have created a master tree (almost 12,000 Bias Descendents from one > man) we are now able to tie back new Branches for many, many researchers > (this could not be done a year ago) We also have a Bias List, just like > this one also on Rootsweb.com, through which we work with questions, > locating the new family researchers, etc. I know this system works, I have > seen the results in both the Bias & Peyton branches, as to how effective a > tool it is. > > Anyway, If any of you are interested please contact me or Crystal Boggs for > a password, please be sure and say that the request is for the > "Blankenship's of America" site. > > Crystal Boggs at CBoggs@ncweb.com > or > Carrie Bias Hoffert at Hoffert@mindspring.com > > > ==== BLANKENSHIP Mailing List ==== > Please remember to post your family information putting the SURNAME in all caps and using dates and places. The more information you provide, the easier it is for someone to make a connection. > >

Sandy The emails you refer to can be shut off, very easily, so that you will not receive them....I do explain how and encourage everyone to do so in the invitation they receive to the site. The other great advantage to the MyFamily site, over all other sites, I checked lots of locations; 1. the memory capacity (75MB for Free) 2. the ability of ALL members to post stuff to the site 3. the ability of sharing administrative responsibilities by 2-3 persons 4. the capability to control the members from being able to accidentally delete info, while still allowing everyone the ability to post to the various systems on the site. All in all it offers the best known source for establishing a vast repository of information, in a safe and mutually shared environment. I was willing to pay rootsweb for space if they could offer a program with all the advantages, with the risks controlled and still allow general and free access to all. They were unable to do so. As one person cannot possibly do ALL posting that allows for this much info being accumulated; still have time for personal research; and be involved in multiple sites; this was the only choice I saw as viable. That is why we have chosen to use MyFamily for the Bias, Blankenship, Poteet & Crabtree sites and we intend to do the same thing again for another surname later this year. One other advantage, with the universal login system that is available, we can post to multiple sites at the same time, based on if the info is generic or appropriate to each specific site. Examples of this need are; links to major research sites (we have a system set up to manage those) and an offer to share Crabtree documents. These cover Crabtree family history, family lineage charts, maps and other info from 1550 - mid 1700s in England and on into the later 1700s in America. I was able to post that Crabtree offer on all sites (4) that had the strong potential of Crabtree associations, without posting to every site that I am involved in, and this was done with just one posting effort. I can assure you if we had to do every posting individually to each site they just would not happen. So it is a matter of time management, gaining access to many sources of records, the easy storage of those records & documents and the ongoing ability to add & correct information in an environment for all descendent researchers to utilize. Maybe this will explain some of the advantages of the MyFamily site, there are disadvantages...just the time for emails & setting up new members, assisting their entry process, explaining features and usage are all time consuming for those of us that do the admin, but we feel the advantages certainly outweigh the personal disadvantages. Just thought you and the others might like to have some more info to let you know how & why it all works. Carrie