blog post "Ancestry to Delete WorldConnect Trees & Shut Down RootsWeb Mailing Lists"

[KATM]

For those who do traditional genealogical research (which I hope is every customer of FTDNA, but I know I dream), and have relied on various sources online, here is a blog post by Roberta Estes regarding the loss of a couple of old, but great sources: "Ancestry to Delete WorldConnect Trees and Shut Down RootsWeb Mailing Lists – Prepare NOW"

Comments to this post have not been kind regarding Ancestry's long history of this type of behavior.

[Stevo]

I am definitely not happy with what Ancestry did with the Sorenson database and with their own Y-DNA and mtDNA databases.

I haven't looked at Rootsweb in quite awhile, but at one time I was pretty active there. There used to be some lively DNA discussions there.

[Jim Barrett]

Ancestry has a history of taking over a free site and then starting to charge for it or removing it after a few years. Will Find-A-Grave be next. Find-A-Grave requires a lot of resources and Ancestry gets nothing in return.

[KATM]

Ancestry has a history of taking over a free site and then starting to charge for it or removing it after a few years. Will Find-A-Grave be next. Find-A-Grave requires a lot of resources and Ancestry gets nothing in return.

And that is the crux of the matter - profits. We need to realize that, as with most companies, the bottom line is the main concern, and not devotion to the customers' interests. Why should it be any different with genealogy-associated companies? But Ancestry has shown that they are ruthless with the resources they've acquired, once Ancestry realizes they are not profitable. In spite of their company being advertised as for genealogy/family history, it is ultimately a vehicle for profit. I can understand that, but it would be nice if they tried to place the doomed resources they've acquired with another entity (or sell them if they must), so those resources could still be used, vs. eliminating them completely.

Now, if FamilySearch could take over some of these resources when Ancestry decides it won't support them anymore, I would have hope that those resources would continue to be available. Genealogy is FamilySearch's reason for existing.

[Stevo]

Oh, I hope Ancestry leaves Find-A-Grave alone!

[Jim Barrett]

And that is the crux of the matter - profits. We need to realize that, as with most companies, the bottom line is the main concern, and not devotion to the customers' interests.

I agree 100%. I didn't complain about their ever increasing subscription cost, which I paid once again last month.

Rootsweb isn't the first message board they have taken over and later deleted and as Stevo mentioned above the Sorenson database.

I use Ancestry most days and feel they have the best search engine of any of the other sites I have used.

[Cats]

How about FtDNA taking over some free sites? At one time this was the place to test and this board was one of the best places for people to ask questions. (I tested Y DNA way back in 2006, also tested at Sorenson). The database here at FtDNA has more testers from Europe than Ancestry. However on most sites people only recommend Ancestry DNA.

[clintonslayton76]

It is my understanding that the RootsWeb WorldConnect trees, which had a superb gedcom converter, had been written by one man using an old flavor of PERL, and when he died, no one at Ancestry know how to maintain the code. When gedcom standards changed, the uploaded postings became garbed (AL was interpreted as Alberta Temple instead of Alabama, Guatemala for GA, etc.) and were no longer maintainable by the contributing posters. WorldConnect was the home of our combined over-40 years of collaborative research in about seven tree postings, and it allowed a controlled gateway (post 'ems) to additions and corrections to be adjudicated by manager (me) to research or discuss with others before accepting or denying as evidence, without being subjected to the tampering we get on FamilySearch trees and WikiTree profiles. I would have gladly paid a subscription to Ancestry to keep that site alive, but because they tried to fix it and could not, I have been expecting this. I hope that my co-administrator can set up a dedicated site for our trees before I shuffle off, because when I retired, I retired from writing any more code. We cannot control a collaborative effort on WikiTree to keep the profiles as either fully cited or at least properly notated, and those RootsWeb WorldConnect trees were how we sent links that married genealogical research with our DNA project at FTDNA (or not) to those who were querying us. As stated, service to genealogists is not the motivating factor behind decisions at Ancestry, and while I am pretty bullish on ventures getting monetary support from users, I do not like to pay for a service that has so much garbage masquerading as citable "records" that waste the time of researchers when proven to be misleading or non-existent. My "Thru Lines" posted there are science fiction.

[Jim Barrett]

OFF TOPIC!

Ancestry DNA Match list: Why does Ancestry tell us a match has a public tree with 'X' number of people in it when everyone in the tree is private? I was told there are people in the tree but they are all living. I say there is no one in the tree because if I use the 'list all option' no one is listed.

I wonder when Ancestry will be shutting down RootsWeb Freepages.

[Biblioteque]

I will not get started on my many complaints about Ancestry; but my ability to start and build out as many trees as I want in my acct without any additional charge is a big plus. I presently have 23 trees of many varieties, alternative lines, research trees, quick and dirty trees, et al. Many dozens more I have deleted.

[KATM]

Jim Barrett, I don't know why Ancestry does that with the public trees. It is very frustrating, though.

I wonder when Ancestry will be shutting down RootsWeb Freepages.

In the Roberta Estes blog post I linked in the first post of this thread, she said "The RootsWeb mailing lists will be gone April 6, and the WorldConnect trees on April 15^th." and then "It’s unclear what will happen to the Message Boards and RootsWeb Hosted Websites."

Looking at RootsWeb, there are notices at two places on that home page, with "more info" links. Both go to the same RootsWeb support page, "Retiring and Migrating Portions of RootsWeb," which seems to lay out what is going to happen:

RootsWeb was founded in 1996 and has had an extraordinarily long and successful run, outlasting nearly every other website originating in those early days of the internet. RootsWeb has far exceeded its founders' expectations regarding longevity and its central role in creating an online genealogy community, but maintaining RootsWeb forever is not a viable long-term solution. We recognize the valuable genealogical information RootsWeb offers and are working to keep that community knowledge alive by migrating it to Ancestry and other places throughout 2023.

Mailing Lists Archives (last updated in 2020) will be retired on 6 April 2023 and migrated to an alternative, free platform. Once migration is complete, we’ll provide a link to them on the RootsWeb home page.

WorldConnect family trees (last updated on 9 August 2021) will be retired on 15 April 2023 and migrated to Ancestry as a new free-access collection later in the year. For help removing a tree or its content, contact us.

Hosted websites will become read-only beginning in early 2024. At that time, all logins will be disabled, but hosted sites will remain on RootsWeb as static content. Website owners wishing to maintain their sites must migrate to a different hosting provider before 2024.

There is no date for this article, but it seems that it may be in response to people complaining about the loss of these resources. I suppose what is posted can be considered good news, mostly. For your question, it seems that the RootsWeb free pages hosted by Ancestry will become read-only, and not able to be updated. There is more on the linked page, including how those who maintain the hosted pages can download the content. So we can hope that some of the Ancestry-hosted websites will move to another host, and still be available..