I am on approximately 70 genealogy mailing lists on Rootsweb. There isn't much being said about the changes on any of them except for a few GenWeb sites stating they are changing to a different servor. :) Marianne Dillow Zelda Capehart <zcapehart@wildblue.net> wrote: This is getting ridiculous. I'm doing genealogy research on a shoestring, too. It appears a lot of people want a free ride. I have a large website for free with no limit to its size. I like that. Who doesn't like it when they can get something like this for free. True, in return advertising banners appear on every page. Maybe somewhere down the road there will be a charge for it. I would hope in return they would remove their banners. Only time will tell. I have a membership with Ancestry. When you calculate what I have access to and the charge, it is really not that expensive. I don't mind them sharing my information that I have posted. I freely share with others and lots of people have freely shared with me. I would not be as far along on my genealogy research if this wasn't the case. Life is full of changes. Some I don't like at all. I'm much more concerned about the state of things in this world. This change appears pretty minor to me in comparison. I am amazed at what this list allows on it. Most lists will not. Here people are using a free list to complain about the move that has been made. I think that if people want to make comments about this they should email each other. This list is for the sharing of genealogy information, not for what is taking place right now. Zelda    zcapehart@wildblue.net Our Genealogy Website http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb com/~mcapehart/index.html "Tough times never last, but tough people do!" -- Robert H. Schuller

Have this happen over the last few years in other areas.? Is LDS site the only other gen. site than Ancestry?? Many of my state, county sites are shutting down until more research allows them to pick and choose.....Pretty damn presumptuous to use us all then charge.....bob long -----Original Message----- From: Linda <linda@maine.rr.com> To: pabucks@rootsweb.com <pabucks@rootsweb.com> Sent: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 3:03 pm Subject: [PABUCKS] On the other hand... I was upset at first about Ancestry charging the fee for info I had provided but look at it this way- some of us wouldn't be as far along in our genealogy if Ancestry didn't provide this service. If you are unwilling to share your info with them the rest of us will never see it!! I recently paid my annual fee and their costs have come down this year. I did a lot of research the old way, libraries, historical societies etc., but its nice to hear from people who have seen my tree online at Ancestry and help others or have them help me. I hope this controversy stops. It seems to be dominating the site. There is certainly nothing we can do about the situation. Linda ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

RW has more visitors than Ancestry ... Kathi Jones-Hudson, National Coordinator Tombstone Transcription Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/index.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

I was not going to make any further comments about RW-Ancestry, etc., but think perhaps some clarification and further information is in order. TGN (The Generations Network) owns Ancestry, My Family, Rootsweb, Genealogy.com, Family Tree Maker: http://www.tgn.com/default.aspx?html=overview Last fall Spectrum Equity, a venture capital firm, bought into TGN bringing along $300 million dollars in new money. Venture capital firms have one motive --money making, increasing revenues in the companies they invest in, making them run more efficiently and economically. Whether it's genealogy or electronics, their objective is to turn a profit and then get out. Divisions of a company that do not produce revenues are either cut off or absorbed into the divisions that do .. like RW being absorbed into Ancestry. RW has not had any staffers of its' own for quite some time (perhaps more than a year)--it uses Ancestry's staff to keep things rolling. And I'd be kinda surprised if anyone on this List noticed any substantial diferences in RW during this past year. The change for right now is a visual change with urls going from rootsweb to rootsweb-ancestry and all sites that have been housed on RW servers will be branded, i.e., will have a banner identifying it as part of the Ancestry Community. Here's an example of a freepage at RW with the header & footer banners: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~apsmith/ This is the user policy for user submitted data on Ancestry: By submitting content to Ancestry, you grant The Generations Network, Inc., the corporate host of the Service, a license to the content to use, host, distribute that Content and allow hosting and distribution of that Content, to the extent and in that form or context we deem appropriate. The quesion in the minds of people (and other genealogy organizations) who have sites on RW-Ancestry servers is: what do 'use' and 'distribute' really mean? Does it mean that any data on those servers is able to be put into the fee-based areas of Ancestry? Or made available (distributed) on cd's or other for sale collections? That is why many sites are moving off RW-Ancestry servers. Right now TGN/Ancestry, etc. are maintaining that RW will remain a freely accessible genealogy resource and all people can do is hope that continues. But of course no one should depend on that being a forever kind of thing as business decisions to change operations are made all the time. Also there are other alternatives for contributing your data to genealogy groups that will keep it freely accessible -- USGenWeb in particular. http://www.usgenweb.com/ Kathi Jones-Hudson, National Coordinator Tombstone Transcription Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/index.html ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

I was upset at first about Ancestry charging the fee for info I had provided but look at it this way- some of us wouldn't be as far along in our genealogy if Ancestry didn't provide this service. If you are unwilling to share your info with them the rest of us will never see it!! I recently paid my annual fee and their costs have come down this year. I did a lot of research the old way, libraries, historical societies etc., but its nice to hear from people who have seen my tree online at Ancestry and help others or have them help me. I hope this controversy stops. It seems to be dominating the site. There is certainly nothing we can do about the situation. Linda

RootsWeb AnnouncementMarch 13th, 2008 by Tim As you know, The Generations Network has hosted and funded the RootsWeb online community since June 2000, thereby maintaining RootsWeb as the world’s oldest and largest free genealogy website. TGN remains committed to this mission and believes that RootsWeb is an absolutely invaluable and complementary resource to Ancestry.com, our flagship commercial family history site. We believe in both services and want to see both communities prosper and grow. As part of this goal, we have decided to “transplant” RootsWeb onto the Ancestry.com domain beginning next week. This move will not change the RootsWeb experience or alter the ease of navigation to or within RootsWeb. RootsWeb will remain a free online experience. What will be different is that the Web address for all RootsWeb pages will change from www.rootsweb.com to www.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Again, the RootsWeb experience is not changing. The decision to host RootsWeb on Ancestry.com is being made for one primary reason: we believe that the users of each of our two main websites can be better served if they have access to the best services available on both. Simply stated, we want to introduce more Ancestry.com users to RootsWeb and vice versa. Today, despite the fact that Ancestry.com and RootsWeb.com are the two most frequently visited family history sites on the Web, only 25 percent of visitors to Ancestry.com visited RootsWeb in January 2008, while only 20 percent of visitors to RootsWeb visited Ancestry.com (according to Comscore Media Metrix). We think we will serve our users best by doing a better job of letting them know what is available on both Ancestry.com and RootsWeb. Hosting RootsWeb on Ancestry.com is the first step towards making this happen, but we will absolutely look for more and better ways down the road to advance this goal. Hosting RootsWeb on Ancestry.com will also make it easier for us to make changes and improvements to the RootsWeb experience in the future. All old RootsWeb URLs will continue to work, whether they are bookmarks or favorites, links to or from a hosted page or URLs manually typed in your Internet browser. We will have a redirect in place so that all old URLs will automatically end up on the appropriate new RootsWeb URL. You will never need to update your old favorites or links unless you want to. We have worked to make the transition as seamless as possible for our users, and this change should have a minimal impact on your experience with the site. RootsWeb will remain a free online experience dedicated to providing you with a place where our community can find their roots together. If you have questions regarding this change please email them to feedback@rootsweb.com. Thanks, Tim Sullivan CEO The Generations Network, Inc.

I have tried to stay out of this thread, buttttttt. On one of the other lists someone posted a message from Brian Leverich, who with his wife, Karen Isaacson were the founders of RootsWeb. Brian said the contract of sale held no promise that RootsWeb would remain free. In 2005, at the NGS conference, the Ancestry / RootsWeb folks asked a RootsWeb lunch meeting what those of us there thought about a premium service that would have a fee. Those present basically told them they would be shooting themselves in a very tender place. I have never been happy with Ancestry's marketing methods, or the way they have harvested genealogical date from the people who post both at Ancestry or RootsWeb. In my opinion the only thing that justifies my special subscription is the census records, that is just about all I have access to. Additionally, much of the information found there is extremely unreliable, anything found there MUST be independently verified. For those of you with similar feelings to mine, I suggest you join the Family History Library's indexing project. The FHLIP is currently indexing the US census records among many other things. There are more than 115,000 volunteers working on the project. I have almost done 4,000 records myself since Christmas. It usually takes me 20 minutes to do one census page. Once all of the information the FHL has on microfilm, has been indexed and made available on line for FREE, Generations Network / Ancestry / My Family will be a moot point. Personally, I think they are trying to make a killing before their boat sinks. If you are interested, here is the URL: https://www.familysearchindexing.org/en/index.jsp Marleen Van Horne

I understand the concern about a cost for rootsweb (which I must admit I haven't heard from any other site other than this one) especially since we were all told would continue to be free to all when acquired by ancestry.com many years ago. For that I feel we have the right to feel misled if it is true. However, with regard to charges by ancestry.com, of course no one has to subscribe. I work at a college that is currently researching the costs of scanning documents. We are not talking campus-wide, but a small area of a small to midsize college, and the costs are coming in a minimum of $70,000 plus personnel. The cost of server space to house such an endeavor is quite expensive, as are the programmers or software packages that allow it to run. Most smaller college software packages cost over $2M - and that is without all the implementation costs to get it working and the annual licensing costs. I can't even imagine the costs for ancestry.com on the scale that they have. I am so relieved that they have been able to access many records that I can't reach, either because of the costs of gas (whether by car or plane), with the hotel and food costs while I am there, or just because I have no idea where to begin looking. They have also provided a great gathering place for those who may have information for me, like I have information for them. Otherwise, we would continue to do what we did many years ago--comb phone books (which fewer people are included in any more), write lots of letters that go unanswered, try to run down family members who somehow got custody of the family bible, or hope to find the last living relative who remembers some very necessary piece of information. I'm sure many who subscribe are like me, willing to share particular bits of information with others who can't afford access or who are not near a library that can still afford the staff to house census records and other information. I will be the first to admit that I cringe when I get the bill. I also sit down and do a cost/benefit study to see if it is still worth it to me. It still is. The time may come when I no longer benefit proportionally or when I just plain can't afford it. I really hate to see that time come. Meanwhile, I'm using it as much as I can. Bottom line is, please don't be too critical of ancestry.com for their subscription services. Be critical as you want for their countering their written statement to us many years ago that rootsweb will continue to be free. However, I intend to write ancestry.com to make sure that what we are hearing is true and ask them why, if so, they went back on the original commitment. There might be a very good reason - or maybe not.

Amen to that - what is reasonable to a lot of you who obviously have the money to spare - is very unreasonable to we who are doing this on a shoestring. What a lot of you don't seem to realize is - there are a lot of people who can not afford expensive sites like Ancestry. We have a serious need to and want to but when money is tight and the genealogy budget jar is empty, we have no alternative but to use the free sites only. If they go money hungry like Ancestry, that shuts us out. Does that seem fair and reasonable???? Reese Spicer Idaho ----- Original Message ----- From: "Linda Musgrave" <no1rosemom@yahoo.com> To: <pabucks@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 7:03 PM Subject: Re: [PABUCKS] RootsWeb to be Moved to Ancestry.com > Might seem reasonable to you ,but NOT to me,especially when they started > out as a "Free" service until a lot of us donated our family history to > them and then they proceeded to "lock us out" unless we paid them !!!!! > to me they are a bunch of "money Hungry crooks". I would rather take a > train or plane to the area my ancesters lived in and search the records > for myself !!!! > To each his own ,but I would rather give up my hobby than pay them one > red cent!!!!! > > Linda > > > > --------------------------------- > Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! > Search. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I am sorry to hear this also. Genealogy used to be fun! I won't post my info anymore, because those sites are using it to make money.\ Virginia Hines -----Original Message----- From: pabucks-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:pabucks-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of DaveLadely@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 11:48 AM To: no1rosemom@yahoo.com; pabucks@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [PABUCKS] RootsWeb to be Moved to Ancestry.com While that is a good point, Ancestry did photo and place an awful lot of info online, such as census, immigration records etc etc, all of which is very expensive to do. I know, because I used to do that as a job before I retired. I do think they charge way too much for access though. That is Ancestry.com, though, and its World Tree is not very impressive, while Rootsweb.com is great. If people charged for sending in their family data, I think that would really cause financial problems. I have over 35,000 individuals in mine. What should I charge? I do this as a hobby, have helped others a lot, corrected some major errors, paid huge fees for translations, and still was happy to send my data in so that whoever would have access and be helped. Had I charged even a thousandth of what I think my hours and efforts were worth, I think any service would still not pay for it, no matter what service. I have heard from people who thanked me for putting it up, and that is enough even if someone is making money off it. I did like Rootsweb the best, being free and easy to access. It will indeed be sad and may be unfair to have to pay for access. cheers Dave Ladely **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001) ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

You tell em, Linda...Ancestry is kinda like these banks and interest rates... We get to feeling like that cross between a hooker and an elephant...Bob Long ( out of Beans and Hough to name a few) -----Original Message----- From: Linda Musgrave <no1rosemom@yahoo.com> To: pabucks@rootsweb.com Sent: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:54 pm Subject: Re: [PABUCKS] 29 GenWeb states have left rootsweb Please send me links to sites that have chose to leave rather than be associate with Ancestry.com I am one of the people that donated my information to them only to have them decide to charge me for access to MY OWN information ! NO WAY WILL I EVER PAY THEM A PENNY FOR ACCESS TO THEIR INFORMATION, If I am too old or too poor to visit the places and look up the PUBLIC information,then I will do without !!!! Linda --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Many Public libraries subscribe to Ancestry. I use one in the Chicago-area when I am up there. My local Conroe, Texas library also subscribes. The only thing with my local library is that I don't know if they get everything from Ancestry. I haven't gotten around to asking the librarian about it. I know that somethings are missing. I plan on making 2 or 3 locations my "vacation place" in the near future. jim o'sullivan > Linda; > There is no doubt you are right.! Ancestry got started with FREE > donated information from naive people like me and then locked us out of > even our own information unless we paid, If I never did another day's > research, I will never pay them one penny for information. Beside,most > of it is public information anyway,so why not make that area your next > "vacation place" > > > --------------------------------- > Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it > now. > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

While that is a good point, Ancestry did photo and place an awful lot of info online, such as census, immigration records etc etc, all of which is very expensive to do. I know, because I used to do that as a job before I retired. I do think they charge way too much for access though. That is Ancestry.com, though, and its World Tree is not very impressive, while Rootsweb.com is great. If people charged for sending in their family data, I think that would really cause financial problems. I have over 35,000 individuals in mine. What should I charge? I do this as a hobby, have helped others a lot, corrected some major errors, paid huge fees for translations, and still was happy to send my data in so that whoever would have access and be helped. Had I charged even a thousandth of what I think my hours and efforts were worth, I think any service would still not pay for it, no matter what service. I have heard from people who thanked me for putting it up, and that is enough even if someone is making money off it. I did like Rootsweb the best, being free and easy to access. It will indeed be sad and may be unfair to have to pay for access. cheers Dave Ladely **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)

Linda; There is no doubt you are right.! Ancestry got started with FREE donated information from naive people like me and then locked us out of even our own information unless we paid, If I never did another day's research, I will never pay them one penny for information. Beside,most of it is public information anyway,so why not make that area your next "vacation place" --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

Please send me links to sites that have chose to leave rather than be associate with Ancestry.com I am one of the people that donated my information to them only to have them decide to charge me for access to MY OWN information ! NO WAY WILL I EVER PAY THEM A PENNY FOR ACCESS TO THEIR INFORMATION, If I am too old or too poor to visit the places and look up the PUBLIC information,then I will do without !!!! Linda --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

Everyone please calm down. First off, I'm NOT the admin for this list, but this topic is not a good one for a genealogy mailing list, and quite possibly against the Community Guidelines and maybe the list guidelines of our list admin. Please read the announcement at http://blogs.rootsweb.com/newsroom/ If you have any questions, please direct them to feedback@rootsweb.com or place your comments on the Newsroom blog. Thanks for understanding. Rick B Fellow list admin from down the road at PABERKS.

My Sentiment exactly. Never would I submit my Family History which is extensive to Ancestry. I knew they would take your info and sell it over again. Thank goodness I did not fall for this tactic Ron ----- Original Message ----- From: Linda Musgrave<mailto:no1rosemom@yahoo.com> To: pabucks@rootsweb.com<mailto:pabucks@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 10:03 PM Subject: Re: [PABUCKS] RootsWeb to be Moved to Ancestry.com Might seem reasonable to you ,but NOT to me,especially when they started out as a "Free" service until a lot of us donated our family history to them and then they proceeded to "lock us out" unless we paid them !!!!! to me they are a bunch of "money Hungry crooks". I would rather take a train or plane to the area my ancesters lived in and search the records for myself !!!! To each his own ,but I would rather give up my hobby than pay them one red cent!!!!! Linda --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com<mailto:PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I agree with you Richard. Rootsweb has never denied being a part of Ancrestry.com. We all have the choice as to where we click on the web and we all know where our delete key is. Linda --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

Might seem reasonable to you ,but NOT to me,especially when they started out as a "Free" service until a lot of us donated our family history to them and then they proceeded to "lock us out" unless we paid them !!!!! to me they are a bunch of "money Hungry crooks". I would rather take a train or plane to the area my ancesters lived in and search the records for myself !!!! To each his own ,but I would rather give up my hobby than pay them one red cent!!!!! Linda --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

Just a comment: I have belonged to Ancestry for years. I absolutely couldnt get along with out the Ancestry census and Im' surprised more people dont feel that way. Its 155 per year which seems reasonable. You can, of course, go with the 1880 Mormon free census and also maybe get Heritage Quest thru the libraries and those are useful too. I use all 3 for censuses. Sometimes you find stuff on one that is missing on another. Jane On Mar 15, 2008, at 10:42 PM, Linda Huff Muessig wrote: > They will take all information, I'm sure, that's been posted on > Rootsweb and > put it for sale on Ancestry and their CD's and all. It's only a > matter of > time. :( > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Al Lenkner" <alenkner@stargate.net> > To: <pabucks@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2008 5:14 PM > Subject: [PABUCKS] RootsWeb to be Moved to Ancestry.com > > >> >> from another list: >> >> >> >> Interesting article here: >> >> http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/03/rootsweb-to- >> be.html >> >> See also: http?//blogs.rootsweb.com/newsroom >> >> RootsWeb to be Moved to Ancestry.com. >> >> As a more-or-less skeptic, I wonder when the other shoe will drop >> and RW will be either terminated or become a for-a-fee service, >> despite Sullivan's claims to the contrary.. >> >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> PABUCKS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PABUCKS- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message >