Hi all, I am copying this message to all of my lists. There has been lots of conversation lately about the future of Rootsweb given the corporate buy-outs of Broderbund and Palladium, etc. into the mega-consortium of Mattel and the concurrent "trickle down" effects for armchair genealogists. Palladium has been the corporate sponsor for Rootsweb as you may or may not know. Rootsweb must now work quickly to protect its goals of offering a continuing free exchange of genealogical information for folks who choose to share such data on the net. Additionally, GenForum has been swept up into the Broderbund umbrella and the news this week announced that Yahoo is buying Geocities. For me, Rootsweb is becoming about all that is left for the common folk who may not have the expendable cash to "pop" for each new CD that may or may no toffer me one or two pieces of usable dat in my research - if it is correct and not misreported, unsubstantiated data! The question was recently posed as to how anyone who did not feel they were in a position to offer money could still support Rootsweb with their time. Here is a response which all listowners have been given permission to post. If you fall into this category, I encourage you to contact Kay! Jana Black Proud Rootsweb Listowner, DEWHURST-L, GERARD-L, KIRWIN-L, MATLOCK-L Proud Rootsweb Sponsor Plus <http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jmbhome> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Census Project would be glad to have anyone who wants to volunteer. We not only need transcribers, we need proofreaders, and other help too. Please visit our pages at: http://www.usgenweb.com/census/ Thanks so very much! Kay Mason National Coordinator USGenWeb Census Project http://www.usgenweb.org/census/ http://www.usgenweb.com/census/ http://www.usgenweb.net/census/ Member, USGenWeb National Advisory Board http://www.usgenweb.org