In a message dated 6/22/2000 5:22:13 PM Central Daylight Time, leon1946@telepath.com writes: > Thank you for sharing your opinion about this merger. I have a cousin > who specifically stated he did not want anything he researched ever > given to the "Church of the LDS" (the Mormons). Of course, that is his > opinion. I am not a member of that church, and do consider myself a > Christian. I do not quite understand how their interest in Genealogy > ties into their beliefs. But, I think we do need to wait a while to see > how things shake out. > I was browsing the "FamilyHistory.com" site today on the Estes Forum, > and found the time to load a page tedious. Sounds like they need to > upgrade their '''whatever''' to make it load better. The "GenForum" > loaded to my browser much quicker. > Just do what you are doing well, and if you chose to make a change, > just let us know. Hi Leon: Thanks for the back up. However, I think there may have been some mix up in what is taking place. 1. The LDS chuch has absolutely nothing to do with this. Ancestry is not and has never been a part of the church program. While some of the owners of Ancestry may be LDS, some probably are not. Ancestry was started by a group of business men and genealogist in Utah. And not everyone that lives in Utah are LDS <smile>.. which is where the misunderstanding probably came in. Just remember: Ancestry does NOT equal the LDS Church. 2. The LDS Church site is at www.familysearch.org. It is free to the public and is supported entirely by tithing and donations of the LDS Church members. Even the software program that is used by the Church members (Personal Ancestral File) is free for downloading at that site. The PAF program works a lot like Legacy. 3. Anyone that wants to know more about the LDS beliefs can go to their official web site at www.lds.com. They can even order a free Book of Mormon at that site. Where the Bible is a history of God's people in Europe, the BOM is a history of God's people in America. Great reading, even if you are not LDS. 4. Rootsweb was started for the free use of genealogist and was maintained by donations. I personally donated cash each year and paid for a web site for my business. I recieved a trial subscription to Ancestry which I had never used before. Some of the Ancestry has free databases anyone can use. Rootsweb sites will remain free and from my understanding from the private letter I recieved, their will be no noticeable changes. Hope this clears up things a bit. Annette