VASTAFFO-L Archives

From: Yvonne James-Henderson <>
Subject: [VASTAFFO-L] Rootsweb Needs Our Help!
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 18:21:18 -0500

Everyone on a very limited income, those new and young genealogy
researchers with young families or people who already give to
RootsWeb may delete this message.

For everyone else, I am begging you to listen.

RootsWeb is run by a Mom and Pop operation called Brian Leverich
and Karen Isaacson, husband and wife. They started RootsWeb out of
the money in their pockets with the server in their home. Karen
works for Rand Corp fulltime and Brian, a Phd in computers, does
speaking engagements and keeps RootsWeb servers, equipment "pieced"
together with whatever donations comes their way.

Brian is determined to keep genealogy free on the internet. Our
donations haven't been enough (about 2.5% of the users of RootsWeb
sites donate) so he went out after a sponsor who wouldn't have
strings attached. Palladium came across but was recently bought by
the biggies, I think it was the Broderbund conglommerate - forget)
and the money and equipment expected from Palladium didn't make the
last payment. Soooo, Brian and Karen took out a $25,000 loan
recently to keep our genealogy free out here.

A thought has crossed some minds that the "biggies" are trying to
break Brian and Karen down in order to get B and K to sell out to
them.

Brian and Karen are working to go non profit so down the road maybe
some major contributions and foundation money will go their way.
Brian says all involved in going non profit with an atty, etc, is
mind boggling.

In the meantime, RootsWeb is hurting in the financial support
department.

Anytime you are subscribed to a list or browse/search sites for
genealogy information, note the domain in the url. Does it have
rootsweb in the address?

I am begging you, if you can afford it, to support the RootsWeb
Genealogical Cooperative.

If I have helped you in anyway with your research, would you please
donate $12 or $24 to RootsWeb so we can keep all this great
genealogy data on the internet free and even increase the data for
users?
I am doing my part by being a donor.

Here is the site to learn about RootsWeb and the address to donate.
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html

I know with Christmas we are all pretty well tapped out, but could
you find $12 or $24 or even more by Jan?

Think of those little pieces of paper with ancestors names on them
that Grandpa, Grandma, Dad or Mom saved for you, how they would be
flabbergasted at the time it is taking you to find a ggggrandparent
by way of the internet and RootsWeb.

By January, we will probably find the RootsWeb servers overloaded
with all the new computers received as Christmas presents. It
happens every year.

A side note here - this is the best time to browse while everyone
is in Wally World going crazy with shopping. Better get the
browsing done now because January and the increase in people going
online, it inevitably slows down.

Thanks for listening and thank you to anyone who will contribute to
RootsWeb. Written by Gloria Frazier

Happy Holidays,

Yvonne in Burke, VA
Vive la USGenWeb Project!
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• [VASTAFFO-L] Rootsweb Needs Our Help! by Yvonne James-Henderson <>