Rootsweb

Have you stopped by to check out the Rootsweb genealogical site lately? The majority of the site continues to maintain free status even though it was purchased by Ancestry a few years ago. The site allows you to do two primary things. Share your research and communicate with other genealogist.

As we all know with the creation of the internet one of its primary advantages for the genealogist is to provide the ability to share our genealogical work with other researchers that we would never be aware of otherwise. Rootsweb allows us a way to share with others in several different ways. First it allows us to submit records about our family, geographic region or group. It also allows us to download GEDCOM versions of our genealogies on their site for collaboration with other researchers. This has been the primary function of this site for a long time. Finally it has the ability to allow us to specifically post information on a particular surname.

The other primary feature of this site is it allows us to communicate through a variety of methods with other researchers. Mailing lists both surname, geographic location or occupation specific offer excellent ways to share information. All of these allow us to be very specific to communicate with others on a particular interest. Lucas County has a mailing list where people that are subscribed to it are conducting research on families in our area. Surname lists like the one on Davey allow me to communicate with others that may share my common line. You have the ability in this area to have the postings sent to you in Digest or individual form. My suggestion is to do it in Digest form, because this will greatly reduce the amount of emails you are getting.

Message boards have proven to be very helpful when posting information about our family. Here rather than getting the information sent to your email box you actually post it in a surname or geographic area specific message board. The chances of you locating a common interest researcher are very strong on the message boards. The comments and communication on the boards is very good. You have the ability to have response to your postings sent to your email address.

The one draw back on this site is it’s ownership by Ancestry. Although you can access a great deal of information for free on this site it is constantly trying to drive you to the Ancestry site. Another draw back to it is that the site has been around since the late 80’s. It was one of the first sites for Genealogy on the internet. The archive portion of the site is enormous and can prove very valuable for your research. Remember like all things with genealogy do not include the information into your genealogy until you have properly documented it.

Please send your comments to daveyderek@gmail.com.