Hi All, I see that the announcement has made it to the mailing list before any of us has had a chance to evaluate what it means. Rootsweb has assured those of us who rent low cost space from them that nothing will change. I hope that is true. I'd prefer that we keep discussion off the mail list as it is not anything any of us can do anything about. I have major concerns, also, as I can not rent the amount of space my site uses from any other organization at anything approaching the low price I pay at Rootsweb. Long term, this is no surprise. It was only a matter of time. I was asked a few months ago what I thought the future of genealogy on the Internet would be and I replied that sooner or later the sites that survive will be those with the revenues to support them. As much as we all like the volunteer nature of what has been done, it is unrealistic to think that people will be able to cover the costs of large scale development out of their own volunteer pockets indefinitely. Brian and Karen, who founded Rootsweb and invested large amounts of money in developing its technology so that we site developers could have low cost space have incurred tremendous financial losses. The people who use their many resources for "free" did not voluntarily send in the donations to make it possible for them to keep going. They were idealistic to assume that the grateful public would recognize that the technology that supports their operation costs money and would willingly chip in to help with the costs. 10% of the people who watch public TV contribute money. It is certainly much less for Rootsweb. Most people, and I hate to say this, are takers and not givers or sharers and that is what this merger is about. Many of you will not like to hear this, but if you are not contributing to the development of voluntary resources on the Internet either financially or by chipping in on the work, then you are part of the reason such things fail. I am very hopeful that the structure Rootsweb has created can continue as it has but realistically nothing that is "Free" can last forever. Someone pays the price and we all have limited resources to do it. My intention is to continue to develop <A HREF="http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/jmtindex.htm">Tri-County Genealogy Site of Joyce M. Tice</A> as I have been doing and to make whatever adaptations are required to keep it going and keep it available to the best of my personal and financial abilities. Nothing that any of you have contributed to the site will be taken over by any other organization. As owner of the site, that is all under my control. Any copyrights you may see on any pages are there only to prevent any commercial operations from running off with the goods. You may respond to me privately at JoyceTice@aol.com Joyce M. Tice <A HREF="http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/jmtindex.htm">Tri-County Genealogy Site of Joyce M. Tice</A>