This seems important enough to our project to forward to this list to
ensure everyone is aware of it.
I imagine any discussion would be deemed appropriately held on our
NCDiscuss-L list.
-Sandy
>Resent-Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 05:09:25 -0700
>Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 05:06:02 -0700
>To: RootsWeb-Announce(a)rootsweb.com
>From: RootsWeb-Announce(a)rootsweb.com
>Subject: Good News, Bad News, Good News: The Merger of RootsWeb and
>MyFamily.com
>Resent-From: RootsWeb-Announce(a)rootsweb.com
>X-Mailing-List: <RootsWeb-Announce(a)rootsweb.com> archive/latest/2
>X-Loop: RootsWeb-Announce(a)rootsweb.com
>Resent-Sender: RootsWeb-Announce-request(a)rootsweb.com
>Good News, Bad News, Good News: The Merger of RootsWeb and
MyFamily.com
>Good news: You, our list and board administrators, have
played a very
>special role in making RootsWeb one of the largest and most popular
>sites on the Internet. In May, we had over 149 million page views
>(according to Nielsen NetRatings combined home and work statistics),
>sent over 155 million e-mails, and handled over two million downloads
>of files from the various archives hosted at RootsWeb. Everyone, take
>a bow! This is an incredible community of genealogists, and the
>advances we're all making in our research due to the sharing that
>occurs here is unprecedented. Without you, it couldn't have happened.
>Bad news: The more popular RootsWeb becomes, the more
costly it is to
>simply stay alive and online. Expenses continue to exceed revenue.
>We ran up a truly scary loss last year. Without outside help, it's
>not clear how long we'd be able to go on like this.
>Good news:
MyFamily.com (you may know them better as
Ancestry.com)
>recognizes the importance of the genealogical community that has grown
>here at RootsWeb, and wants that community to continue to thrive.
>They're excited to provide the financial stability we need to ensure
>RootsWeb will be around for years to come.
>Brian and I are pleased by Ancestry.com's coming
involvement with
>RootsWeb. Now we can all focus on helping each other on the mailing
>lists and message boards, uploading our GEDCOMs, and building Web
>pages to share our research.
>Better news: As a special thank you for the hard work you
do,
>Ancestry.com is making the following offer:
> As a RootsWeb mailing list or board adminstrator, you
are invited to
> visit
Ancestry.com today and sign up for a FREE THREE MONTH SUBSCRIPTION
> with no obligation. You'll gain full access to all 600 million names in
> more than 2,500 databases. Go to the following address to begin your free
> subscription now:
>
http://ancestry.com/subscribe/subscribetrialx.asp?sourcecode=G11BB
> <
http://ancestry.com/subscribe/subscribetrialx.asp?sourcecode=G11BB
> If you are already an
Ancestry.com subscriber please call 1-800-595-1211 to
> extend your current subscription. Select option #2 - Order Service.
> You must activate your FREE subscription by July 5,
2000.
>More good news: Nothing will change for you, no one is
going to charge
>you to use RootsWeb. You'll still find RootsWeb at
www.RootsWeb.com.
>Everything you're used to using will still be here: the 19,000 mailing
>lists, the hundreds of millions of names in free genealogy databases,
>the interactive learning guides, the weekly RootsWeb Review and
>Missing Links, the numerous tools for tracing your family history, the
>tens of thousands of message boards, the thousands of independently
>authored web sites. RootsWeb will still support worthy genealogy
>projects and societies, such as the USGenWeb Project
>(www.USGenWeb.org), the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild
>(ISTG.rootsweb.com) and the FreeBMD Project (
FreeBMD.rootsweb.com),
>and other groups that provide free genealogical resources.
>And don't worry, you won't be charged to access
RootsWeb. No one
>will put your data on CD without your permission. Our Privacy Policy
>(http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/pledge.html) and our Acceptable User
>Policy (
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/aup.html) are unchanged.
>Other promises made over the years will continue to be honored. You'll
>still deal with the same RootsWeb volunteers and employees. In
>fact, most users won't notice any changes, except exciting new tools,
>more content, and better genealogical resources.
>If you would like more information, please check out our
>official press release at
>
http://www.ancestry.com/home/celebrate/rootsrelease.htm
>Thanks again for your support! Now, let's go figure
out where
>great-great-grandpa really came from, before that UFO deposited him in
>rural Indiana in 1848...
>Karen