Dear Cousins, If you enjoy receiving any or all of the surname lists, please consider becoming a sponsor. The costs are prohibitive and donations are needed if we are to continue on this or any of the RootsWeb lists. Thanks! Joyce (and yes, I have already sent my contribution......) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The SURNAMES lists are sponsored by the RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative. RootsWeb is funded *entirely* by you, the genealogical community -- to find out how you can help support Internet genealogy through RootsWeb, see this page: http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< This is a bit snipped from a recent message received on one of the lists with the reply from Dr. Brian Leverich: >> I am wondering who or what institution supports ROOTSWEB? >> Are they attached to a university? It obviously is a huge venture >> that someone is underwriting currently. I assume any donation we >> would make would be on top of the commitment of the main sponsoring >> org. >RootsWeb has *no* "main sponsoring org". No university, no >government agency, no gensoc, no business, nobody but *you*. > >We are *entirely* supported by voluntary contributions. > >Our hardware and bandwidth budget for the last year was in the >neighborhood of $60,000, of which about two-thirds were individual >contributions and the rest came out of Karen and Brian's pockets. >Apple Computer also donated a server to RootsWeb, which augments the >other 4 main servers we've bought. > >Karen and I have also donated our time as system administrators, as >did the other RootsWeb folks. > >Next year's costs will be well over $100,000 and possibly as high as >$200,000, depending on whether we have the resources to start buying >datasets and uploading them for everyone to freely use. >RootsWeb wouldn't have happened without the support of the Internet >genealogical community, and we need continued support if we're going >to keep expanding the services that are available to the community. > >Thanks to everyone who is helping us make this happen! -B