Gee, Robert, I'm truly puzzled, as I did easily get 962 Bowles scrolling before my eyes, and I'm not a member of Ancestry.com. And I wouldn't lead any of our members astray by trying to manipulate them into joining Ancestry. I see it as each member's choice at any time, but I don't have that as a hidden agenda. (What I've said here sounds much sterner in writing than it would if you and I were in person.) I just went back to the site to check it and once again got 962 Bowles to look at. And yes, there is a notation that if you didn't find who you were looking for, you can find more extensive records if you join Ancestry.com. If you and I were standing together talking, I'd ask you to pull up a chair and let me tell you the story of RootsWeb. Those of us who are oldtimers know that it had a touch-and-go, delicate history in the first few years. Ancestry.com funds RootsWeb now, which means that you and I are no longer asked to pay for the services that RootsWeb provides for us...so I would expect that Ancestry is going to have those notations come up now and then. But you and I can ignore them and exchange all kinds of information that we find in various cemeteries, libraries and other repositories, and we never have to pay anything to Ancestry. I guess that the Ancestry ads don't bother me because I know that they're keeping RootsWeb alive for us. Many years ago when RootsWeb asked us for contributions to keep the organization going, very few members paid anything. They even sent us electronic photos of all their servers and told us how they had to drive miles for parts and stay up all night fixing them, and this cost money, and would we please, please contribute? There was a daily, breathless tension as to whether RootsWeb would have to fold or not in the days before Ancestry rescued them. I kicked in just a tiny bit, because I didn't have much to give them. But I felt that RootsWeb was so heroic in keeping the business going, and so valuable to all of us who enjoyed genealogy, and it had so many more possibilities to it than the old U.S. Post Office route, that I gave what I could. In return for the contributions that we gave in its lifesupport days, RootsWeb decided to pay back everyone who contributed by giving them, after Ancestry came on the scene, further use of the Personalized Mailing List---for free. I told RootsWeb every variation of the "bowls" surname that I could think of at the time, and their robots scan every board or list that RootsWeb sponsors, and every midnight I get a long list of postings that has a Boles, Bowls, Bowles, Boales, etc. in it. All those odd and sundry postings that you see from me almost daily are a measure of RootsWeb's gratitude for the support that it received in a time of real desperation. I think that each of us, depending upon when we joined in the dance with RootsWeb and genealogy, will have a different take on how irritating Ancestry's signs and notations are. So just ignore the signs and use what you can. I'd rather not have ads coming up either, but if Ancestry stays solvent and decides to keep on funding RootsWeb, that means that we get to keep on enjoying each other's company and information on the Bowles list. Yours with warm wishes, Linne >I did not find any Bowles listed. Ancestory.com will give me Bowles names if >I subscribe to their service which is appearently the purpose of >findagrave.com. >Robert Collett > >> Subj: Re: Bowles: Cemetery Resources >> Date: 6/1/2005 10:17:23 PM Central Standard Time >> From: linne@gravestock.name >> Reply-to: BOWLES-L@rootsweb.com >> To: BOWLES-L@rootsweb.com >> Sent from the Internet >> >> >> >> Isn't it a surprise? Much bigger and more names and places >> than I imagined it would have. >> If you find a Boles/Bowles ancestor there, come back and tell >> us. Or if you find an ancestor who was connected to a Boles/Bowles, >> tell us that, too---and how they were connected. > > I thought the site had some great possibilities for all of us. >> Linne >> >> >> > >> >In a message dated 6/1/2005 6:16:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, >> >linne@gravestock.name writes: >> > > > >www.findagrave.com >> > >> > >> > >> >Thank you so much for sharing. This is a great web site! >> > >> >Susan Walters >> >> >>