I've been asked about the relationship between Rootsweb, Ancestry and TGN. What I'll say is based on my knowledge, which may or may not be right, but I'll try to answer the question. Rootsweb was founded a number of years ago as a private enterprise as a place where folks could share genealogy freely. At some point they began to accept donations. By the time Rootsweb was sold, because donations alone could not keep the web site running, it had become the defacto largest free genealogy web site covering family names, free web sites for several organizations to share data, and several countries besides the USA. Rootsweb was sold by its founders to Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com was a commercial venture which makes money by selling access to databases. At the time of the sale Ancestry.com said Rootsweb would still provide free space and services. Ancestry grew in size and I suppose commercial success so that it too became a valuable commodity. Another name that Ancestry.com either changed its name to or created, merged with was Myfamily.com There are many domains (base name URLs) that in effect lead one back to Ancestry.com but all or almost all are genealogy based. There may be some history ones, but I'm not sure about that. http://myfamily.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=77 - name change from MyFamily.com to The Generations Network. This company was then sold? - http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/12/the-generations.html ------------------------------- Whether or not the freespace will continue for organizations like USGenWeb, ALHN, AHGP and private individuals remains to be seen. When one hosts their web site on Rootsweb, there is a blurb there saying that by posting material on their web site you give them permission to move the data to various servers as need be. This makes sense in technical terms for one needs servers backed up in case a hard drive fails. However, and this is I'm sure the sticking point with many, one would think it does not include copying of data from the free side (Rootsweb) to the commercial side (Ancestry). When folks have complained about copyright issues, for the most part they have been told they can't copyright facts, that the data is public domain, etc. There was a recent explosion on the genealogy lists when Ancestry announced a biographies project where they had indexed sites across the Internet (even private sites) and put such in their 'for sale' slots. I won't pretend to know what the future holds, what a new company will do regarding web accounts, one's data, etc. Some have chosen to start web sites elsewhere, move data to other servers, to protect it from possible harvesting by Ancestry for data they have freely given, to be free for the public. The biography project proved that with the Internet nothing is safe. If you don't want to share, don't post it. I've taken different approaches, based on my own particular thoughts regarding this situation and the time to do such. When folks write me about donation of material I let them know about the relative safety of their data and then offer them choices as to what to do. I respect the donator's wishes and place the material accordingly. So in case you are wondering I do have an alternative Chenango county site where I'm placing data I have and will submit for the Chenango County researchers. http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/chenango/ I hope this answers the questions regarding this subject. Tim Stowell Chattanooga, TN