Hello all, This is from another list. . . Not sure if this has been posted yet, but apparently as of April 1, 2007, there will no longer be free access to Ancestry.com databases at Family History centers. Apparently, this letter was forwarded as a response to many requests as to the reason for this. . .just FYI. The below is from a letter Tim Sullivan, CEO of The Generations Network sent to Ancestry employees. The full letter was placed on the Genealogy Blog by Leland Meitzler. http://genealogyblog.com/ancestrycom/another-side-of-the-ancestrycom-removal-from-the-family-history-centers-5877I also wanted to share a few thoughts with all of you on another topic. Forthe last seven years, our company has provided free access toAncestry.com<http://ancestry.com/>inside the family history centers ofthe LDS Church. During this time, we'vedone this without any formal agreement or compensation. Several months ago,we informed the Church of our desire to craft a formal relationship thatwould allow us to continue providing this free access. This is similar tothe way that we license Ancestry.com <http://ancestry.com/> to over 1400public libraries in the U.S. and U.K. We do this for a license fee whichlets patrons of these institutions use our service for free inside theirfacilities. As you can imagine, this is a very popular program amonglibraries. Unfortunately, we were not able to come to agreement with the Church on theterms of this proposed relationship. We ! are disappointed by this, as we knowthat patrons of family history centers valueAncestry.com<http://ancestry.com/>,and we think our institutional licensing program is priced very fairly. Weremain willing and eager to have Ancestry.com<http://ancestry.com/>available in family history centers, and we areeven hopeful that at somepoint the Church will reconsider their position and decide to give patronsof their family history centers access to the world's greatest onlineresource for family history research. We will continue to provide access in family history centers to a smallnumber of databases which are covered by other agreements, and none of ourother many agreements with the Church are impacted by this change. Wecontinue to have a number of mutually beneficial agreements andrelationships with the Church, and as two large players in the familyhistory space, we share a common goal of getting as many people as we caninterested in their family history. Our relationship is a go! od one, and weare always looking for ways to cooperate with the Church in order to growour business and ignite more interest in the category. I'm sharing all ofthis with all of you because I am sure that there will be some unhappypatrons of family history centers, and I wanted everyone to understand thatthis was not a one-way decision on our part. Finally, I am constantly asked whether we think of the Church as acompetitor. The answer to this really depends on the underlying assumptionsof the question. Are we competing for dollars? No. Do we have exactly thesame goals? No. Are we unfriendly? Absolutely not. Is TGN committed tomaking sure that Ancestry.com <http://ancestry.com/> remains the #1 resourcefor online family history? Absolutely. Is Ancestry going to continue to bethe home of the world's largest online family tree? Yup. Should we be ableto innovate faster than anyone on the planet in this space? Of course. Arewe two large players that each have done tremendous things to help peopleunderstand their family history? Yes. Can we continue ! to cooperate with theChurch to get millions more people interested in family history? We can, andwe will. I think we have a pretty good game plan for continuing to grow a trulygreat company. Thanks, TimI don't have any further information, Pam