Here's the e-mail I received. -Virginia ----- Original Message ----- From: <RootsWeb-Announce@rootsweb.com> To: <RootsWeb-Announce@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 8:09 AM Subject: Good News, Bad News, Good News: The Merger of RootsWeb and MyFamily.com > Good News, Bad News, Good News: The Merger of RootsWeb and MyFamily.com > > Good news: You, our users, have helped create at RootsWeb one of the > largest and most popular sites on the Internet. In May, we had over > 149 million page views (according to Nielsen NetRatings combined home > and work statistics), sent over 155 million e-mails, and handled over > two million downloads of files from the various archives hosted at > RootsWeb. Everyone, take a bow! This is an incredible community of > genealogists, and the advances we're all making in our research due to > the sharing that occurs here is unprecedented. > > Bad news: The more popular RootsWeb becomes, the more costly it is to > simply stay alive and online. Expenses continue to exceed revenue. > We ran up a truly scary loss last year. Without outside help, it's > not clear how long we'd be able to go on like this. > > Good news: MyFamily.com (you may know them better as Ancestry.com) > recognizes the importance of the genealogical community that has grown > here at RootsWeb, and wants that community to continue to thrive. > They're excited to provide the financial stability we need to ensure > RootsWeb will be around for years to come. > > Brian and I are pleased by Ancestry.com's coming involvement with > RootsWeb. Now we can all focus on helping each other on the mailing > lists and message boards, uploading our GEDCOMs, and building Web > pages to share our research. > > Better news: As a special thank you to those of you who have helped > make RootsWeb such a vibrant Internet community, Ancestry.com is > making the following offer: > > You are invited to visit Ancestry.com today and sign up for a FREE > 14-day trial with no obligation. You'll gain full access to all 600 > million names in more than 2,500 databases. Go to the following address > to begin your free trial now: > > http://ancestry.com/subscribe/subscribetrialx.asp?sourcecode=G11BA > <http://ancestry.com/subscribe/subscribetrialx.asp?sourcecode=G11BA> > > You must activate your FREE trial by July 5, 2000. > > More good news: No one is going to charge you to use RootsWeb. You'll > still find RootsWeb at www.RootsWeb.com. Everything you're used to > using will still be here: the 19,000 mailing lists, the hundreds > of millions of names in free genealogy databases, the interactive > learning guides, the weekly RootsWeb Review and Missing Links, > the numerous tools for tracing your family history, the tens of thousands > of message boards, the thousands of independently authored web sites. > RootsWeb will still support worthy genealogy projects and societies, > such as the USGenWeb Project (www.USGenWeb.org), the Immigrant Ships > Transcribers Guild (ISTG.rootsweb.com) and the FreeBMD Project > (FreeBMD.rootsweb.com), and other groups that provide free > genealogical resources. > > And don't worry, you won't be charged to access RootsWeb. No one > will put your data on CD without your permission. Our Privacy Policy > (http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/pledge.html) and our Acceptable User > Policy (http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/aup.html) are unchanged. > Other promises made over the years will continue to be honored. You'll > still deal with the same RootsWeb volunteers and employees. In > fact, most users won't notice any changes, except exciting new tools, > more content, and better genealogical resources. > > If you would like more information, please check out our > official press release at > > http://www.ancestry.com/home/celebrate/rootsrelease.htm > > Thanks again for your support! Now, let's go figure out where > great-great-grandpa really came from, before that UFO deposited him in > rural Indiana in 1848... > > Karen > >