An Online Gotha website still unavailable

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Isabelle asked  about this a few days ago in one of my posts, and I've been checking on it every day since.

Paul, is there a reason it's down?

Brooke

[marquess]

I think it's been down for a couple of weeks now.

[Paul Theroff]

All Angelfire and Lycos sites were shut down without notice about twelve days ago. They have not communicated with their customers about this.

I suspect that they are finally permanently out of business, though who knows? They may return without notice, too. I'm actually surprised that they stayed online as long as they did. They cannot have been earning any money from their web-hosting business.

I have no immediate plans to find a new web host for my site.

[Paul Theroff]

Like most websites, by the way, archived versions of the various pages on my site can be found at the online Wayback Machine.

Meanwhile I am maintaining all the pages I had online, adding updates when I find them. Currently this is for my own use, but if I do ever decide to find a new host for the site, or if Angelfire ever returns, they will be ready to go.

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Thanks, Paul, for letting us know what's happening.  I'm so sorry.

Speaking for myself, I am hoping that you will decide to find a new host for the site.  I found it very useful in my research.

 I have been contemplating doing an updated list of Queen Victoria's descendants,  and the Gotha would have been very helpful.  I guess now, I will have to use other sources, although I'm very pleased that we, at least, have genealogics.org available again.

Please post here if and when you are able to find a new host.

Brooke

[Nick MacGregor-Sadolin]

Hi Paul,

Ss sad to hear so.

Just a suggestion:

If you have a gedcom file of your sites data, you could sign up on Geneanet - and then upload this gedcom file there. Though not the same, it is still a lot better than nothing (for us who used your site).

You find Geneanet here:

https://en.geneanet.org/ 

I originally used Geneanet as a backup place for my then TNT website, but I now only uses Geneanet only - entering into my data into the database online.

Just a suggestion, but I hope you will consider it!

Best regards, Nick

Nick MacGregor Sadolin

https://gw.geneanet.org/sadolinsnet_w

My two last names, a dot in between them, and @ gmail.com

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[Paul Theroff]

Thanks very much for the suggestion, but I fear that the work necessary to build a new website, or even to convert to gedcom (which I've never used) is beyond me for now. Perhaps I will change my mind in the future, but for now it's too daunting a task.

When I began my site more than twenty-five years ago, and ever since, each page was created and has been maintained using an old version of Microsoft Word, though in html format. (For at least twenty years, including now, I am using Word 2002.)

Most websites do not allow html pages created in Microsoft Word, apparently because of the formatting Word uses. Thus opening any new site would entail a painstaking re-formatting of every line of every page (after cleaning them up with Notepad, for example, all indentation and spacing are removed) as well as editing of many dozens of embedded links. Converting to gedcom would entail the same process.

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Technology is great, except for  situations like this.  

Wish there was a formatting genie to solve the problem.

[https:/www.LeighRayment.com.au]

Paul, please bring Online Gotha website into its own realm.. I love using that site.. I am sure you can purchase a domain name with cheap yearly fees to maintain it. You don't add heraldry or photos.. So it wouldn't use much space..

[bx...@yahoo.com]

I second that.  It would be a shame if we lost this valuable resource.

Maybe there's even a tech person here with some suggestions?

Brooke

[nconw...@gmail.com]

I'm a tech person, former Network & Web administrator.  There may be a way to write some scripts to parse all the pages and bring them into a genealogy program. Probably RootsMagic would be easiest. It could then spit it out as a Website or use GedSite to convert it to HTML  Setting up a new web host would be the main cost of the project.

Thx
Nicole

[Paul Theroff]

Those interested in what is happening with Lycos and Angelfire can find some information on this Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/N64WrestlingGames/comments/1qcr0oa/what_happened_to_angelfire/


Some of the comments are hopeful and some not. Someone said that Lycos has replied to them and said that they are working on a fix.

Someone else commented that Yahoo had bought them, and shut down most of the sites because they were old and no one visited them. (Which doesn't explain why they would shut down sites which were getting thousands of visits per month, and earning money. I was paying a small monthly fee for extra space and for the privilege of having no advertisements.)

One hopeful thing: Though none of their other services appear to be online (sites are down, emails to support email address bounce back as undeliverable, etc.) I was happy to find today that the link to the payment page still works, and I was able to cancel billing for my plan.

On Tuesday, January 20, 2026 at 12:00:47 PM UTC-6 Paul Theroff wrote:

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Paul, I'm glad you were, at least, able to cancel the billing.

Please let us know about about changes in the situation, and updated if you find another way to upload your site for us to use.

Brooke

[Paul Theroff]

Something changed this evening. Instead of an immediate "Site cannot be found" message, typing the URL of one of my pages now gets to an actual Angelfire page, though it gives a message saying "403 Error! We couldn't find the page you requested. Please check the URL and try again."

And trying to get to my Site Manager page I now get an "Internal Service Error" page which actually mentions Angelfire on the page.

So they are doing something, though whether it means they're actually trying to restore service, I don't know.

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Paul, thanks for the update.  

We will keep our fingers crossed.

Brooke