Why are we doing this?
Knowing your roots, and where you come from is an important component of knowing yourself. This doesn't mean being boastful (although for some people it can), but just being able to have some confidence in who you are, and where you have come from.
We have always felt that the information about a family's history should be available to the members of that family. By available, we mean also that you shouldn't have to pay to access information about your own ancestry (to not mention the names of certain highly-advertised sites who do charge for information like this). It was originally nice to see that a for-pay site was supporting those who provided free content by propping them up, but it became extremely disconcerting when content that was previously available for free was no longer available to those who in some cases had provided it in the first place.
Our goal is to never do this. Since we have a vested stake in the family, we will never charge for access to information. We will also never sell information or mailing lists to anyone else; as stated previously, that's not why we're doing this.
The other goal we have is to provide avenues for cooperative research. If you see information on our site that isn't correct, please let the webmaster know. If you have information that isn't on the site and should be, please let the webmaster know. We will gladly add information that corrects or augments current content, and will also attempt to remove anything that isn't correct. Above all, constructive feedback is and will always be welcome. After all, it's your family, too.
You will find the following here:
What you won't find here:
Rootsweb
Rootsweb was a free genealogy site dating back to the beginning of the world-wide web where a large number of people had posted family trees, and shared information in discussion groups. It was purchased in 2000 by Ancestry.com. Some of its free information has remained free to the public; some is now behind Ancestry's paywall.
As of December 23, 2017, RootsWeb was offine due to what was officially being described as a security breach. There was no ETA provided as to when (if ever) all of the RootsWeb content would be available again.
Update: on January 23, 2018, RootsWeb issued an updated statement that they were bringing WorldConnect back online. They had previously stated that they would be also bringing up both hosted websites and Family trees on a read-only basis, but appear to have underestimated the scope of this project. The process was expected to phased back in over a matter of months.
Update: as of this writing (May, 2020), RootsWeb content was back online, but available in archived format only.
Update: Rootsweb hosted websites are being transitioned to read-only status in early 2024. The Rootsweb mailing lists (which are question and answer boards for genealogists seeking information about family connections) have been archived and moved to Ancestry.com's site: