I just heard about this and wanted to pass it along:
Ancestry.com free access will be DISCONTINUED as of April 1, 2007 in the
Family History Center. Please read below for more details:
"To: Family History Center Directors in English Language Areas
From: Worldwide Support
Date: March 16, 2007
RE: Discontinued Access to
Ancestry.com Databases
For many years,
Ancestry.com has provided free access to patrons of family
history centers around the world. Ancestry has informed the Church that as
of April 1, 2007 it will discontinue this free access to the full
Ancestry.com service.
Free access through
Ancestry.com to the following databases will continue:
1. Index and images for the 1880, 1900 and 1920 U.S. censuses
2. Full name indices for the British 1841-1891 censuses (England and Wales)
3. World War 1 draft cards indices as created and miscellaneous other
databases
Free access is likley to be discontinued for the remainder of the
Ancestry.com databases including:
1.Index and images for the 1930 U.S. census
2.Index and images for the 1901 British census (England, Scotland and Wales)
At this point,
Ancestry.com is not offering an option for family history
centers to independently purchase commercial or library site licenses.
Patrons, of course, may choose to subscribe directly to
Ancestry.com.
Free access to online databases is important and we therefore intend to add
many new databases to
FamilySearch.org. Much of the data preparation will
be accomplished through the online indexing program available at
FamilySearchIndexing.org. We encourage you to visit the website to learn
more.
Volunteers have already begun indexing the 1900 U.S. census and other
projects. Other censuses and vital record collections will be indexed as
soon as the 1900 U.S. census project is completed. The more volunteers that
participate, the sooner access can be provided. Since access to databases
on
FamilySearch.org is free to all, we anticipate that this will be of great
interest to individuals around the world. We are also exploring
opportunities to provide broader access to additional databases from other
online service providers.
Please inform patrons regarding our plans to provide access to records and
invite them to help by participating in the FamilySearchIndexing projects.
We will communicate as more information becomes available."