I thought I would pass the following on to all you researchers of Wells.
Ancestry.com is offering free access to all it's databases until July 31st
including the ones that are normally open only to their subscribers. There
is a LOT of valuable information here. If you have never been into their
files this is a good time to go have a look and see if there is anything
you need before the barn door closes again.
Also, if you have not heard,
Ancestry.com is acquiring
Rootsweb.com. The
reason is that Rootsweb has grown far beyond the wildest dreams of the
folks who originally set it up. It has been supported financially by
contributions by "Sponsors" who mainly had websites like the Wells Family
Research Association. This money was used to acquire hardware, software
etc. and I presume to help pay for the time spent by the many folks who
worked behind the scenes to keep it all running.
Unfortunately, the costs were exceeding the revenue and they had to either
find a solution, scale back or shut it down.
Ancestry.com has agreed to
take it over. I do not know the details and we may never really know them.
We can only hope, and there are assurances, that rootsweb will continue to
be run as it is today. Namely a free mostly non-commercial genealogical
research repository.
Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<ORWells(a)bigfoot.com>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
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