Robert Lipprandt wrote: > Back in the old days, I almost (notice I said almost) put all my research > and findings on Rootsweb (before it was purchased by Ancestry). Since the > purchase, the various family group information has been moved to Ancestry > and used for it's various pay per view links. This makes me uneasy at it has > taken so much time and effort (and finances in some cases) to obtain. Robert, If you posted your information on Rootsweb's WorldConnect, it's still there, available for free. It will also be on Ancestry's WorldTree, available by subscription. The reverse is not necessarily true. I regularly update my database at WorldConnect. Because it's there, I've been contacted by relatives (and many others) about the names there. Apart from the fun of finding connections to other researchers, the information that has shared with me has been invaluable. A late second-cousin of mine was doing "scholarly research" and planned to write a book when he was done. He did not want any of his work appearing on the internet, so I told him he should not give me any of his information, because once I had it, it would become part of my knowledge and I'd be likely to post it (inadvertently, of course). He died just a couple months after being diagnosed with a very rare kind of cancer. His work is lost -- what a shame! In the meantime, I had had contact with others -- sometimes almost monthly-- with someone closely or distantly connected somehow to people in my database. So my inclination is to continue to share my data. Of course others will 'take' it -- but as far as I'm concerned, the benefits far outweigh the 'cost.' Just my thoughts on the issue... Mona -- Mona Houser [email protected] http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~monajo/