I apologize again for my out of line comments to Richard. Actually I like him. I was offended and didn't keep my sarcasm under control. GenForum is connected to Broderbund, which -- IF I am not mistaken, was bought out by or merged somehow with Ancestry. The published CDs with people's trees on them and sold them, which made many people upset ... Someone else might know if they actually had permission to do this ... I don't. Ancestry was a Godsend after Broderbund (Genelaogy.com), and Rootsweb was at the time an independent entity that apparently had a hard time supporting itself since it was free -- or donation based, so the originators of it sold out to Ancestry -- which is when the Rootsweb and Ancestry trees became the same. Genealogy.com has pretty much died off. Aside from the historical records, I don't know what they have that you can't buy for less somewhere else. FamilyTreeMaker was the genealogy program sold by Broderbund. Now its with Ancestry.com as well. One of the two bought out Ultimate Family Tree, which was a great genealogy software program, and eliminated it. The bigger the business, the more they have to make, and the more creative and ruthless they become in doing it, even to the point of at least the verge of copyright infringement and unethical practices. They hire personnel to answer the phones who are not equipped for the job and sometimes don't even answer your emails. It's not just genealogy -- It's business in general. Depending upon what area you are researching, there are various libraries and archives online that scan and publish online old books and magazines, deeds, deed indices, manuscripts, family Bibles, historical journals, material concerning religious material, and on and on. These sites are so much better because they are nonprofit and they continue with their projects until the money runs out. They just don't have everything we need, so we have to turn to sites like Ancestry. I wish they would get some competition again so they would try harder to please the customers and spend more time adding data rather than indexing information already available. Most of the copyright issues come from private individuals thinking just because it's posted and can be copied they are free to distribute it. We're not even free to distribute emails without permission, let alone other people's graphics and narratives. We CAN use them as sources. I find my most valuable online information with Google searches and the libraries and archives mentioned above. Heritage Quest also is very helpful .... and free for people whose libraries subscribe. The best source of information of all are the people we meet and discussions we have. Debbie ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour

Debbie: Thank you for a nice message and the words in it about me, Debbie. You mentioned some of the "genealogy" of the on-line companies. I thought you might be interested in the following. Some questions arose the other day about possible changes in ownership at Ancestry. I used to have a file chronicling the changes in township, etc., for companies associated with computer genealogy but it disappeared in one of my computer changeovers. So I went to the mailing list archives at RootsWeb (and aren't we lucky to have those! <g>) and looked up some message I had written long ago. Here's what I sent someone else the other day: "The interesting "genealogy" is that of Family Tree Maker. It was created by a company called Banner Blue, previously known for its programs like Organization Chart Maker (the father of FTM - they simply changed the names of the labels on the chart and rearranged the boxes!). Banner Blue got further into the genealogy business by acquiring Automated Archives, a company that had acquired the rights to the computerized census indexes created by Accelerated Indexing Systems (who published the mainframe printouts in books) and was publishing these on CDs (about 1994). No sooner - just a couple of months - had Banner Blue bought AA than BB was acquired by Broderbund Software. Broderbund gave some polish to FTM and also went to the Internet as Genealogy.com. Broderbund was sold to Mattel Toys which was promptly acquired by The Learning Company. TLC dumped it on A&E cable TV - which practically gave it away to Ancestry.com because the overhead was so high. Not only did Ancestry get the company but they got several years worth of free ads on A&E channels! Ancestry.com's genealogy is much less interesting. It started life as Ancestry, Inc., a publisher of genealogy books with a fine reputation among genealogists. When it decided to venture into the on-line genealogy business it did so under the umbrella name of MyFmily.com. It gradually moved ahead of competitors after receiving a huge infusion of venture capital in the late 1990s (I remember seeing this venture capitalist guy on CNBC (stock market channel) telling how much money they had invested and how very much more it was going to make. That was when Ancestry started to become a hard-sell organization with some pretty dismal results (but that's another story). Today, it is TGN - The Generations Network. Besides acquiring its biggest rival, Genealogy.com, along the way Ancestry acquired RootsWeb, which started life as a user-owned cooperative which was supposed to be supported by donations from grateful users. The users were grateful but they forgot to send their donations. Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacsson, the founders of RootsWeb, not only poured their souls into RW, they borrowed much trying to keep it afloat. Finally they could afford it no longer and it was taken over by MyFamily. "There are other interesting - but not lengthy - "genealogies" in the computer genealogy business. One of the most popular and promising programs was ROOTS, by a company called CommSoft and headed by Howard Nurse. Howard sold to a company called Palladium, which promptly renamed it to the Ultimate Family Tree and then made changes no one liked. It sold it to Genealogy.com, which let it die in favor of the inferior Family Tree Maker. Corel decided to get into the act with its Family Tree Suite, featuring the Family Tree Creator and other niceties in a three-disk box. It died shortly thereafter. Or did Corel sell it off to Genealogy to be killed?" Perhaps others have some "computer genealogy genealogies" or can correct the mistakes above - or add dates. Debbie, the Lewis Bibler note was not my work. It appears in a book by a noted historian and genealogist (now deceased, I believe) named B. C. Holtzclaw. At the time your fist called my attention to the name of Lewis' wife the file was not at my web site; I only had a link to it. It is now at my site. I am having the deed in question checked to see what it says about the name of the wife of Lewis. I'll let you know. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: <RoverLSmith@aol.com> To: <copyright@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 11:40 PM Subject: Re: [COPYRIGHT] ADMIN NOTE > > I apologize again for my out of line comments to Richard. Actually I like > him. I was offended and didn't keep my sarcasm under control. > > GenForum is connected to Broderbund, which -- IF I am not mistaken, was > bought out by or merged somehow with Ancestry. The published CDs with > people's > trees on them and sold them, which made many people upset ... Someone > else > might know if they actually had permission to do this ... I don't. > > Ancestry was a Godsend after Broderbund (Genelaogy.com), and Rootsweb was > at > the time an independent entity that apparently had a hard time supporting > itself since it was free -- or donation based, so the originators of it > sold out > to Ancestry -- which is when the Rootsweb and Ancestry trees became the > same. > > Genealogy.com has pretty much died off. Aside from the historical records, > I > don't know what they have that you can't buy for less somewhere else. > > FamilyTreeMaker was the genealogy program sold by Broderbund. Now its with > Ancestry.com as well. One of the two bought out Ultimate Family Tree, > which was > a great genealogy software program, and eliminated it. > > The bigger the business, the more they have to make, and the more creative > and ruthless they become in doing it, even to the point of at least the > verge > of copyright infringement and unethical practices. They hire personnel to > answer the phones who are not equipped for the job and sometimes don't > even > answer your emails. It's not just genealogy -- It's business in general. > > Depending upon what area you are researching, there are various libraries > and archives online that scan and publish online old books and magazines, > deeds, > deed indices, manuscripts, family Bibles, historical journals, material > concerning religious material, and on and on. These sites are so much > better > because they are nonprofit and they continue with their projects until the > money > runs out. They just don't have everything we need, so we have to turn to > sites like Ancestry. I wish they would get some competition again so they > would > try harder to please the customers and spend more time adding data rather > than > indexing information already available. > > Most of the copyright issues come from private individuals thinking just > because it's posted and can be copied they are free to distribute it. > We're not > even free to distribute emails without permission, let alone other > people's > graphics and narratives. We CAN use them as sources. > > I find my most valuable online information with Google searches and the > libraries and archives mentioned above. Heritage Quest also is very > helpful .... > and free for people whose libraries subscribe. > > The best source of information of all are the people we meet and > discussions > we have. > > Debbie