RootsWeb has been the largest free genealogy site and is one of the oldest. Formerly run on donations, it became part of the Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com and Family Tree Maker group, "owned and operated by Ancestry.com Operations Inc.", and carries advertisements for their services and external ads via Google. It is therefore just as "commercial" as Familypedia.
Mailing lists[]
Quoting from home page, 17 May 2023: "Note: The Rootsweb Mailing Lists will be shut down on or around May 1, 2023. "
Clicking on a "list" index on 17 May 2023 gives unexpected results. Example: https://mlarchives.rootsweb.com/listindexes/overview?findlist=New%20Zealand Starts off listing:
- "new-zealand This will be the new mailing list for New Zealand as from Mar 2. The new list is operating now.
- "australia-new-zealand A mailing list for the discussion and sharing of information regarding the australia-new-zealand surname and variations in any place and at any time.
- "new-mexico A mailing list for the discussion and sharing of information regarding the new-mexico surname and variations in any place and at any time. "
The link on the first one goes to https://mlarchives.rootsweb.com/listindexes/emails?listname=new-zealand&page=1 - which appears to have the last 20 emails and a search box and a link to page 2.
Overall changes in 2023[]
The following statement was at https://support.rootsweb.com/s/article/Retiring-and-Migrating-Portions-of-RootsWeb on 17 May 2023:
"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 or around 1 May 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."
External links[]
- Home page
- Its 32,740 mailing lists - note at top of page, May 2023, says "Note: The Rootsweb Mailing Lists will be shut down on April 6, 2023. (More info)"