Ancestry.com which has been slowly taking over the Rootsweb pages has now struck at the heart of free online genealogy. Every genealogy website in the country has been mined by Ancestry.com who is now caching the efforts of all the volunteers and making them available as a commercial venture. You can now PAY to see what was put online FREE. This new spider [for which the US Patent Office actually gave them an exclusive patent] does not apply to just pages on the Rootsweb server but all genealogy pages INCLUDING YOUR PERSONAL GENEALOGY PAGES, wherever they might be. Anyone who wishes can read about it in Dick Eastman's column at: *http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/08/the-generations.html *<http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/08/the-generations.html> The following explanation of the process is from Ancestry.com. Sadly, we were not told until every genealogy page in the country had been spidered: The MyFamilyBot Information Page: *What is MyFamilyBot? Why is it accessing my files?: * MyFamily is creating an index based on a powerful person-based biographical ranking engine that gives superior results over searches done using the more general purpose internet search engines. Ancestry.com indexes the biographic text and provides a search service that points users back to the originating website. *MyFamilyBot* is the name of a web crawler (a.k.a. robot, spider) used by MyFamily.com to find biographical text on the internet in connection with this engine. The crawler works by deeply crawling sites that contain biographical text. We have constructed the bot to limit its affect on site usage to be within the range of that of the large commercial search engines. Sites that do not contain biographical text are examined in a superficial manner. Some counties are removing their pages but the horse is already out of the barn so it is a little late for that. Until this is settled no new information will be added to the web pages so Ancestry can charge people for what we provide freely. Cheryl Rothwell

I felt guilty that I used the Free Ancestry site and was able to manipulate on some of the sites (like marriage records to get married name or a SSN) to get enough information to go to free sites, but I guess I shouldn't because they got some of the information for free and looks like they will get a lot more. Vick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cheryl Rothwell" <historysleuth@gmail.com> To: "ILLOGAN" <illogan@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 1:17 PM Subject: [ILLOGAN] No More Free Genealogy > Ancestry.com which has been slowly taking over the Rootsweb pages has now > struck at the heart of free online genealogy. Every genealogy website in > the > country has been mined by Ancestry.com who is now caching the efforts of > all > the volunteers and making them available as a commercial venture. You can > now PAY to see what was put online FREE. This new spider [for which the US > Patent Office actually gave them an exclusive patent] does not apply to > just > pages on the Rootsweb server but all genealogy pages INCLUDING YOUR > PERSONAL > GENEALOGY PAGES, wherever they might be. Anyone who wishes can read > about > it in Dick Eastman's column at: > > *http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/08/the-generations.html > *<http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/08/the-generations.html> > > The following explanation of the process is from Ancestry.com. Sadly, we > were not told until every genealogy page in the country had been spidered: > > > The MyFamilyBot Information Page: > > *What is MyFamilyBot? Why is it accessing my files?: * > > MyFamily is creating an index based on a powerful person-based > biographical > ranking engine that gives superior results over searches done using the > more > general purpose internet search engines. Ancestry.com indexes the > biographic > text and provides a search service that points users back to the > originating > website. > *MyFamilyBot* is the name of a web crawler (a.k.a. robot, spider) used by > MyFamily.com to find biographical text on the internet in connection with > this engine. The crawler works by deeply crawling sites that contain > biographical text. We have constructed the bot to limit its affect on site > usage to be within the range of that of the large commercial search > engines. > Sites that do not contain biographical text are examined in a superficial > manner. > > > Some counties are removing their pages but the horse is already out of the > barn so it is a little late for that. Until this is settled no new > information will be added to the web pages so Ancestry can charge people > for > what we provide freely. > > Cheryl Rothwell > ________ > Logan County ILGenWeb: http://www.rootsweb.com/~illogan > > To unsubscribe send a message to: > ILLOGAN-request@Rootsweb.com > with unsubscribe as the subject. > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ILLOGAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.10 - Release Date: 8/27/2007 > 12:00 AM > >

It is important to note that the article you are referring to is not written by Dick Eastman, but posted by a reader. I read it and reread it and - while there are some pretty harsh accusations - I don't think the charges are substantiated, at least in this article Ancestry owns RoosWeb. It certainly can - and has - referred subscribers to databases at RpptsWeb. At the same time, Ancestry has pledged to keep all of the user submitted material at RootsWeb as free database and they remain so. In other words, you do not have to be a subscriber to Ancestry to get the date - but if you are, you will be referred to it. I'm not sure what this person named Daniel has encountered, but it sounds to me like he was having some sort of computer malfunction. The charges that Ancestry is "stealing" data from free sties operated by individuals have been around since it first went into business. There usually is a simple explanation, such as an individual and Ancestry getting the some information from the same source. I don't believe your statement that we will now have to pay for what we once got free is accurate. As an example of what has been happening, someone once said Ancestry is now charging for data in the California Birth Index - and that used to be free. Well, that particular database is in the public domain and it still is free. But as a subscriber to Ancestry, I appreciate that my searches there include a search of the CBI and I don't have to go somewhere else to check that. There are many databases like that. I could be wrong - and I sure hope I'm not - but I think I need a lot more evidence than the single posting by someone who thinks he has been wronged. Richard Pence ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cheryl Rothwell" <historysleuth@gmail.com> To: "ILLOGAN" <illogan@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 2:17 PM Subject: [ILLOGAN] No More Free Genealogy > Ancestry.com which has been slowly taking over the Rootsweb pages has now > struck at the heart of free online genealogy. Every genealogy website in > the > country has been mined by Ancestry.com who is now caching the efforts of > all > the volunteers and making them available as a commercial venture. You can > now PAY to see what was put online FREE. This new spider [for which the US > Patent Office actually gave them an exclusive patent] does not apply to > just > pages on the Rootsweb server but all genealogy pages INCLUDING YOUR > PERSONAL > GENEALOGY PAGES, wherever they might be. Anyone who wishes can read > about > it in Dick Eastman's column at: > > *http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/08/the-generations.html > *<http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/08/the-generations.html> > > The following explanation of the process is from Ancestry.com. Sadly, we > were not told until every genealogy page in the country had been spidered: > > > The MyFamilyBot Information Page: > > *What is MyFamilyBot? Why is it accessing my files?: * > > MyFamily is creating an index based on a powerful person-based > biographical > ranking engine that gives superior results over searches done using the > more > general purpose internet search engines. Ancestry.com indexes the > biographic > text and provides a search service that points users back to the > originating > website. > *MyFamilyBot* is the name of a web crawler (a.k.a. robot, spider) used by > MyFamily.com to find biographical text on the internet in connection with > this engine. The crawler works by deeply crawling sites that contain > biographical text. We have constructed the bot to limit its affect on site > usage to be within the range of that of the large commercial search > engines. > Sites that do not contain biographical text are examined in a superficial > manner. > > > Some counties are removing their pages but the horse is already out of the > barn so it is a little late for that. Until this is settled no new > information will be added to the web pages so Ancestry can charge people > for > what we provide freely. > > Cheryl Rothwell > ________ > Logan County ILGenWeb: http://www.rootsweb.com/~illogan > > To unsubscribe send a message to: > ILLOGAN-request@Rootsweb.com > with unsubscribe as the subject. > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ILLOGAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

If the "article I referred to" is written by a reader then great minds think alike because I wrote what I posted. Dick Eastman does have a post on his blog and there are responses to his post but I haven't had time to read them. As you can imagine, this is a major topic on the USGenWeb lists. We have tested this Richard. They ARE doing it. We can show that they are. I tested it myself -- I'm the tester because I don't have an Ancestry account. Significant amounts of the USGenWeb archives are now on Ancestry, not a referral link but right there on Ancestry with Ancestry banners. The USGenWeb AB is protesting although I don't suppose it will do them a lot of good. The current focus is applying robot.txt to our web sites to see if we can stop the spidering. The current owners of Ancestry are not the people who made the pledge to keep Rootsweb free. Rumor has it Ancestry is up for sale again making the people who made a pledge an even more distant memory. Cheryl Rothwell.

I just found these sites on other newsletters: thought it might help someone. Internet Sources of German Genealogy http://home.bawue.de/~hanacek/info/edatbase.htm (this was writen 17 Sept 2007) The New York Times will make much of it's archived content free starting at midnight tonight. They go back to 1851. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html?ex=1347768000&en=88011ab45717e39d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink