For those of you who may be interested in this topic: Ancestry.com and Rootsweb has announced yesterday a merger of these two companies. Many persons seem to be concerned about this, but I think in all fairness we should wait and see what, if any changes will occur. I have been assured that the Rootsweb lists and associated items on the internet will remain free access and as they have always been. MyFamily.com is a subsidiary of Ancestry.com and many of you use this or have used it. There has been alot of talk on alot of mailing lists regarding this. If you choose to discuss it, then please do it among yourselves and not on the list. Both companies are promising no changes in the mailing lists so lets not let it take over our list, leave this for research. I am posting this only as a way of keeping you informed, many of you should not even notice a difference. Below is in part what has been sent to the listowners. The is a link at the bottom for any further information. Thanks Debbie Jennings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~insert~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 21 June 2000 SPECIAL EDITION ----- MyFamily.com and RootsWeb.com Join Forces: Alliance Allows Free Genealogy to Continue on the Web ============================================================ MYFAMILY.COM AND ROOTSWEB.COM JOIN FORCES <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> ============================================================ MyFamily.com, Inc., the leading online family network, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire RootsWeb.com, the oldest and largest free community genealogy site. RootsWeb.com will continue to be free to all users and will maintain its own unique URL at http://www.rootsweb.com. "This is truly a winning combination for both organizations and for the millions of users who make up our audiences," said Greg Ballard, CEO of MyFamily.com, Inc. The union will provide RootsWeb.com with the financial backing to expand and the business structure needed to focus on preserving, sharing, and exchanging family history records. As part of the MyFamily.com network of sites, the RootsWeb.com site will be able continue its tradition of free access to information with additional technology tools, increased family research content, and a greater range of genealogical resources. "RootsWeb.com fits well with the MyFamily.com vision of creating the largest and most active online resource for families and family history research," said Dr. Brian Leverich, founder of RootsWeb.com. "This agreement will expand the number of RootsWeb.com users and content contributors. At the same time, we have ensured that RootsWeb.com content, services, mailing lists, and Web pages will remain free, while allowing the site to provide more functionality and resources to a larger audience as a result of our being part of the MyFamily.com network." Ancestry.com, part of the MyFamily.com network, has a seventeen-year history of publishing award-winning books, magazines, and CDs, and currently offers more than 600 million records and over 2,500 databases. More than half of the data is freely accessible to all Web users. Ancestry.com also hosts, free of charge, the Ancestry World Tree and Online Family Tree software, which allow users to connect and collaborate with other researchers who are working on the same lines. Ancestry.com users retain ownership of their data, and the company pledges never to charge for access to that data or to publish it. For those who prefer to keep their information a little closer to home, sister site MyFamily.com allows users to create free, private sites that can be used to post family history data, share news and photos with family, chat online, and much more. RootsWeb.com is a valuable resource for family historians, with interactive guides, discussion lists, and numerous tools for tracing one's ancestry; it hosts more than 17,000 independently authored Web sites and about 19,000 mailing lists. All of these services will remain free to users. As part of its ongoing commitment to the genealogical community, MyFamily.com, Inc. will also continue to support RootsWeb.com-affiliated volunteer, non-profit organizations, such as The USGenWeb Project, Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild, The Free Births, Marriages, and Deaths Projects, and other groups that provide free genealogical content. The MyFamily.com acquisition of RootsWeb.com promises to make it easier than ever for family historians everywhere to discover their heritage. For the full press release, see http://www.ancestry.com/home/celebrate/rootsrelease.htm. MYFAMILY.COM, INC. URLs: