Please read the following and consider a contribution to Rootsweb, who makes these mailing lists, the USGenWeb project, online records of many kinds, etc., all possible for us as genealogisits and family historians. While the mailing lists and such are free to us the user, they are NOT free to our hosts. If everyone who used these resources did their part, more records could be put on the 'net for our use. Alice, List owner ------- USGenWeb Project County Coordinator for the following: Marshall Co. KS Geauga Co. OH Seneca Co. OH Clark Co. WA List owner for OHSENECA-L, OHGEAUGA-L & WACLARK-L - --------------------------begin message---------------------------------- > WHY DOES ROOTSWEB NEED YOUR SUPPORT? > > by Dr. Brian Leverich <leverich@rootsweb.com> > > Sometimes it is difficult for users to understand the costs > involved in operating RootsWeb and why it is worth genealogists' > time and money to support RootsWeb. > > For example, take the United States census. RootsWeb is currently > providing server support to the USGenWeb Archives and Census > Projects as they bring the U.S. census online. Our goal is to > have both a searchable index to the census *AND* images of all > the pages available on an open basis for all Internet > genealogists. > > Our best estimate is that bringing the census online will require > about 3.6 terabytes of data storage. That means we will need > about 200 18 GB hard disks, and each of those disks costs about > $1,000. That means the data storage alone is going to cost > $200,000, and that doesn't include the servers and the bandwidth > to make that storage accessible over the Web. > > Is $200,000 a lot of money? Well, sort of. Regardless of how much > they want to help, Karen and Brian couldn't pay for that even if > they mortgaged their house and cashed in their pension savings. > On the other hand, $200,000 is only about 67 cents per user at > RootsWeb. That is about 1/100 of what some commercial firms are > charging for data they have locked up in members-only areas. > > Bringing the U.S. census online is not the only project RootsWeb > supports. We are hosting literally hundreds of other data > projects, some American and many for other countries (like the > British FreeBMD Project). > > If all (or even if most) of our users were contributors, there is > a lot RootsWeb could be doing to accelerate the rate at which > public records are brought online and opened to the public. > You can help us bring those records online. > > For details about support levels/benefits and payment options, > visit <http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html> or > send e-mail to <RW-info@rootsweb.com>. The regular mail address > is: RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative, P.O. Box 6798, > Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798. (Please include your e-mail address > on all correspondence and checks sent to RootsWeb.)