I am sending one sample of messages which are being sent to many of us. You DO NOT need to pay companies like Genealogist Helpers, Family Discovery, GenTruth and the other versions of search engine companies to find sites like USGenWeb and ILGenWeb or any other (STATE)GenWeb site. All USGenWeb sites are FREE to find and FREE to use as long as you don't use them commercially and abide by the copyright. Make them a bookmark and you can get back to them easily. Please pass this information on to all new computer users you know who are just starting to research their ancestors. I hate for anyone to have to pay to find the site which I and many other volunteers work to put FREE databases on. One such FREE site, Macoupin County ILGenWeb which I and many other volunteers work so hard on is: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilmacoup/macoupin.htm There is over 50 megs of FREE genealogy databases, pictures, and other research information for the county. Here is the site to find all the FREE USGenWeb states of which we county volunteers are a part of and the FREE genealogy organization USGenWeb is bylawed: http://www.usgenweb.org/statelinkstext.html (bookmark it) Bylaws are at: http://www.usgenweb.org/official/bylaws.html and USGenWeb main page with a lot of FREE databases' links for FREE censuses, etc., is: http://www.usgenweb.org/index.html ILGenWeb counties are FREE and can be found here: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilgenweb/county.html#q (bookmark it) or the FREE ILGenWeb main page: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilgenweb/index.html A big FREE search engine which will find any genealogy site you want to find. http://www.google.com/ (bookmark it) A huge FREE list of genealogy links thanks to Cyndi Howells: http://www.CyndisList.com/ (bookmark it) and John Fuller's FREE list of regional and surname maillists like this maillist is at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail.html (bookmark it) Please, counties can't grow without help from people like you. You can donate FREE pre 1925 (We like to stay away from living people as much as possible. Pre 1925 will pretty well cover questionable copyrighted material) genealogy information you have to any of your USGenWeb counties. We as USGenWeb members want to get as much free information on county sites for genealogy researchers to find and anyone is welcome to help in that endeavor. Thank you for listening. ***************************************************************** FOR THE SAMPLE MESSAGE BELOW Of course you can't actually get the four day free trial unless you give them a credit card nor can you see what databases they are pointing people toward FOR A FEE. **********START SAMPLE MESSAGE ********** Subject: Genealogist Helpers, Get An Extra 6 Months Free Or A 4 Day Free Trial... Dear Genealogist, How's your research going? Good, I hope. 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Surname, country, state, record type, ext... Where is the uniqueness you ask? There are tons of search engines out there already. What does ours offer that others do not. Simplicity. With our search engine you can search for two names simultaneously. Or you can use Soundex. Or you can search for surname and country. The combinations are limitless. All your results can be filtered by a score that you get to pick. For example relevancy, new or old, and more... You can refine your search results. In other words you will be able to do a re-search of the search results you just received. 3. Special Offer Just For You ------------------------------------ This search engine is planned to be up and running within the next month. If you go to http://www.genealogydevelopments.com and purchase an annual membership right now, before it is up and running, you will receive a substantial savings of up to 80% off the expected membership price. That's not all! We will also give you an EXTRA 6 MONTHS FREE! Sincerely, GenealogyDevelopments.com P.S. You must hurry. This special offer will not last long. If you would like to no longer receive e-mail please send a message to [email protected] with only your email address in the subject line and the body of the message. ************END SAMPLE MESSAGE*********** Gloria ------------------ Gloria Frazier <[email protected]> Macoupin County ILGenWeb County Coordinator http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilmacoup/macoupin.htm Maillist manager for FRAZIER-L and ILMADISO-L