Since I forwarded the first email, it is only fair to forward this as well. In response to numerous questions from users, the email below was posted on the RW Help Desk, which means the Family Trees are still available to be searched manually at no charge. While I accept that this is what they will do - I wonder if they were going to do this before the "uproar" - If so, the original page was sure misleading, and more importantly, Ancestry still will make money off of submitted material. It is similar to the FTM CDs - you donate years of hard work, and they cash in on it.... THINK TWICE before "buying" into this system.... Again, these are just my thoughts - again, below is the message, read it for yourself and decide.... -- A response to your Help Desk message, "One World Tree," of Mon, 3 May 2004, at 11:15 a.m. follows: ------------------------- Trees uploaded to either side (RW/Ancestry) are visible from both sides. Ancestry is *not* charging for access or selling trees: access will remain free from both the RootsWeb and Ancestry side as it has always been. What Ancestry is offering for an extra charge is access to a special search engine to search the trees for you. Folks can still search the trees manually or browse the trees for free the same way they always have. Think of it like a research assistant: you can hire someone to help you look for your ancestors, or you can research yourself for free. That's essentially what it is, except that it's computerized, not human. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

Hello Marcia. One of the Monroe County Local History Room's (MCLHR) many ongoing genealogy projects is our onerous newspaper indexing project. Over the past few years, several volunteers and I have been extracting names from the Sparta Herald newspaper and inputting that info into an Access database. This info is mostly birth, death, and marriage notices, but also a growing list of articles of general interest (house fires, court activity, etc.). Each entry lists the person's name, a description of the article, paper name, issue date, page and column number. Our database currently contains 30,000 entries, dating mostly from 1870-1910. We use it everyday here at the History Room and researchers find it invaluable. Like our Monroe Co. Cemetery Index, we propose sharing this index with the subscribers to your list. If you approve, I would provide the entire database as it is, so that it can be posted and accessed on the Monroe County rootsweb site. Viewing the database would be free. However, MCLHR would provide a copying service for a nominal fee to anyone who spots an article they would like a copy of. Cost would be $3.00 for the first article, $1.00 each additional article, with no more than six articles per request. We would request prepayment before sending the articles. This fee is based on what other similar groups charge for similar services. Because the newspaper indexing project is ongoing and growing, I would provide you quarterly updates. If you agree that this database would be of great use to those doing Monroe County research and would be willing to add the database to the Monroe Co. rootsweb site, I would provide all the wording we would require to inform people 1) how to obtain a copy of an article, 2) how much money to send, 3) and where to send it. I would also ask if I could post a message to the board announcing the availability of the database, along with any notices of updates (like you do with the cemetery indexes). Please let me know what you think about this idea. Part of our mission is to make Monroe Co. history as accessible as possible. This is one more way we can work toward that goal. If you agree to post our database, I will need to know what format I can send it to you. The Access database is currently 3.7 MB in size. Is that too large to email? If so, I can burn it to a disk and mail it to you. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for all the work you do on our rootsweb site. Jarrod M. Roll Monroe County Historian Monroe County Local History Room & Museum 200 W. Main St. Sparta, WI 54656 608-269-8680 (fax) 608-269-8921

My apologies to Marcia and the rest of you for my last message. My intension was to send it to MAK only but here I went and clogged all of your inboxes with it. Sorry! Jarrod M. Roll Monroe County Historian Monroe County Local History Room & Museum 200 W. Main St. Sparta, WI 54656 608-269-8680 (fax) 608-269-8921