Rootsweb is merging the GenConnect boards with some boards at Ancestry.com. Please note that these boards are NOT a part of USGenWeb or ILGenWeb although many pages link to them. The merged boards will have some great new features. They will also give wider circulation to queries, always helpful. However, nothing is perfect and there are some drawbacks you need to consider in advance. Wider circulation means more people will read it, more search engines will pick it up, etc. NEVER NEVER post your snail mail address, phone number or other personal details. More and more people are surfing genealogy sites and gathering information for identity theft and other criminal activities. While Rootsweb/Ancestry.com promises the boards cannot be crawled [yet!] to gather email addresses, if you post the personal information it is certainly available to everyone. If your bank, credit card company, etc. uses 'mother's maiden name' as the security word you need to get them to change it. If they won't you could have a problem since your mother's maiden name is pretty easy to determine these days. You might consider giving them your maternal grandmother's maiden instead or something of that nature. You need to plan that in advance so you remember of course. The new setup APPEARS to eliminate public responses so a poster may have to answer the same questions over and over in email. If this is so some might want to save the email and just keep forwarding the entire correspondence. Of course, that method will share email addresses with all, something that may or may not be desirable. Now might be a good time to get a Yahoo or Hotmail or Bigfoot or other free email address just for genealogy. Yahoo and Bigfoot addresses can be forwarded to your real email account. Hotmail cannot. I don't know about others. Here's what Rootsweb, owned by Ancestry.com, says about the new boards [not yet available but soon]: --- The new message boards database will be by far the largest collection of such messages on the Internet. In fact, the FamilyHistory and RootsWeb messages are extremely complimentary. The majority of the messages on FamilyHistory are surname-based, while RootsWeb's strength is in the locality and topic areas. Not only will the new combination enjoy a larger set of data, but users will have access to a much larger audience. --- The new message boards can now handle attachments to e-mail messages in the form of uploaded pictures (scanned documents, family photos, etc.) and GEDCOM files. --- Users will be able to view the e-mail address of message authors and be able to respond to them easily and privately. However, the message boards cannot be "crawled" by unscrupulous third parties to gather e-mail addresses for spam mailings. --- Search functionality will be improved compared to either the RootsWeb or FamilyHistory systems. Search hits will be ranked by relevance and wildcard searches are available. --- The hardware infrastructure supporting the new message boards is faster, can handle larger traffic loads, and is more stable. The new system is also less expensive over time and easier to maintain. Cheryl Rothwell LoganCty@mindspring.com