What do you think?

2 views
Skip to first unread message

Rebecca Maloney

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 1:14:14 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
I received this today and would like to hear your thoughts!!

I'm Sam Morrison, and I built TreeAlive, a website that puts family trees and historic places on the maps of their time. Since you serve on the USGenWeb Advisory Board and as State Coordinator for Maryland, Colorado and Wyoming, I should mention that I've written to about 40 county coordinators since mid-October, three of them in Maryland, and county sites in Illinois, Arizona and New York have added TreeAlive to their pages. I'm writing to ask whether you'd pass TreeAlive along to your county coordinators, because I think it may suit their sites.

Maryland has 1,587 places on the National Register of Historic Places, and on TreeAlive nearly every one opens on a historical map. Here's St. Mary's Church in Emmorton, on an 1866 map of Harford County:

sc2-md-73000928.jpg

Colorado's 1,581 places and Wyoming's 530 are on TreeAlive too.

For anyone with a family tree, from a GEDCOM file, FamilySearch or WikiTree, it also shows the family's moves as a short animated film. Journey walks one ancestor's life stop by stop on maps from around each year, and Time Machine shows what else the family was doing at any moment you pick. Historic Crossings shows which of these places the family lived near, and which historic figures were nearby at the same time.

It's free to use, with no account or subscription needed to try it, and it's listed in the FamilySearch Solutions Gallery. This link opens a finished sample family with everything ready to explore, no tree needed: treealive.com/?demo=johndoe

Would you consider passing it along? A line like this would do on a county site's links or resources page, and on your own Chittenden County site too, if it suits:

TreeAlive (free): your family tree on historical maps from the years your ancestors lived, with the historic places they lived near. treealive.com

Each state has one page listing its places by county, treealive.com/nr/md, treealive.com/nr/co and treealive.com/nr/wy, so a coordinator can find their own county there.

If you'd rather I approached coordinators differently, I'd like to know. I'm glad to answer any questions.

Thanks for considering it,
Sam Morrison
Thank you,

Rebecca Maloney
Volunteer with USGenWeb ®



David Gochenour

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 1:15:04 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
I received the same.

David Gochenour SC Nebraska  CC Cass County Nebraska CC Arthur County Nebraska CC Middlesex County NJ CC Esmerelda County Nevada CC Lake And Indian River Florida
                             

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "State Coordinators" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to state-coord...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/state-coord/CADh7GBe7TnVGqcTPjSB%2BrKJncF1Zo0xrdC%3DQOYURE%3DUJeQF1xg%40mail.gmail.com.

Paula Perkins

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 1:18:57 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
I received this too and have already had several people look at it. They have been impressed. So much so we will demonstrate it live tomorrow at a genealogy meeting. It's good as long as it's free of charge. He is customizing his emails to SC's too to highlight something from their state. 

I have replied to Sam as well.

Paula 


Cheryl Rothwell

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 1:20:08 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
TreeAlive is highly secure and treats your privacy as a priority. Because it is structured as a client-side web application, your family data never leaves your browser or gets stored on an external server. It is also officially recognized and listed in the FamilySearch Solutions Gallery. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Bob Jenkins

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 1:39:29 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
I am not comfortable recommending third-party services that ask users to upload GEDCOM files or other family data. While I can see value for individual researchers who wish to explore their family history geographically, I do not currently view it as a core genealogy research resource in the same way as records repositories, archives, libraries, or research tools. For that reason, I am not planning to broadly promote it to county coordinators.

Bob Jenkins


Dale H. Cook

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 3:01:07 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
On 10/23/2026 1:13 PM, Rebecca Maloney wrote:

> I received this today and would like to hear your thoughts!!
> ... If you'd rather I approached coordinators differently, I'd like to know.

I wrote back to him:

"You need to spend time exploring the sites of a coordinator before
approaching them. If you had done so you would have found that you do
not fit the resources which I utilize on my 43 USGenWeb sites."

His pages appear to be long on flashy and short on scholarly.
--
Dale H. Cook, Member, NEHGS, AGS, MA Soc. of Mayflower Descendants;
Massachusetts State Coordinator for the USGenWeb® Project;
Administrator of https://plymouthcolony.net

Paula Perkins

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 3:10:41 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
Dale does make a good point. He's not only emailing SC's but the CC's as well. He said that in his email. At first glance it's looks great and the link with FamilySearch noted to appear official. I'll do more investigation on it before promoting now. 

Paula 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "State Coordinators" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to state-coord...@googlegroups.com.

Sundee Holliday

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 3:18:23 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
I get these randomly and I feel like there is always a hidden agenda and "fishing". It doesn't really fit in for what we do. I am agreeing with what Bob said. 
Sundee

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "State Coordinators" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to state-coord...@googlegroups.com.

NancyJanyszeski

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 4:31:04 PMOct 23
to Sundee Holliday, state...@googlegroups.com
With today's technology we don't know if they can harvest visitors emails.

I understand this may sound off the wall but there has to be an agenda to go to this much work and not approach the executive board first



Nancy 

Nancy  Janyszeski. 🎄 
PAGenWeb,  SC

Mary Ann Lubinsky

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 6:16:57 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
I agree. I am a bit suspicious.
Mary Ann Lubinsky 

On Oct 23, 2026, at 16:31, 'NancyJanyszeski' via State Coordinators <state...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Linda Ziemann

unread,
Oct 23, 2026, 6:34:26 PMOct 23
to state...@googlegroups.com
I received this, also, in some form or another over the last week or so.  
I read it — and even also took a closer look.  
But decided I would delete— I am suspicious!   
I don’t think this is a “get rich” type of scheme. But ——????
I am not putting my USGenWeb State sites in jeopardy to whatever the outcome might be!#~%
Linda Ziemann
SC for SD and ND

George Kidder

unread,
Oct 24, 2026, 7:36:08 AMOct 24
to state...@googlegroups.com
I received the same email from Sam Morrison.   After checking his website, decided to decline adding it to New Hampaire.   According to the website "TreeAlive" members of "Ancestry, Family Search, My Heritage, have access to his "TreeAlive".  What does he need USGenWeb for?    Probably free advertising for his website. 
George Kidder  NH/SC 
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages