Rootsweb/Ancestry

[Cheryl Rothwell]

I sent this to our CCs. I think it is something we have to deal with.

I've been seeing more comments, blog posts, etc. about Rootsweb. It is not positive. The general idea is Ancestry is trying to do away with Rootsweb. That is not new. We know they have dumped useful things like mailing lists. We know they placed ads on genealogy websites. Apparently, they are redirecting links to Ancestry. A blog out of FamilySearch a week or so ago strongly suggested members move their websites off Rootsweb. They seemed to hint that websites (apparently some personal, also groups like genealogy societies and such) could be the next to be dumped.

If your county is on Rootsweb you might want to start thinking about Plan B. Ancestry as Rootsweb is also notorious for not proving much notice when they decide to drop things.

Cheryl Rothwell

Current ASC, Retired SC, ILGW

[Linda Ziemann]

Cheryl is right — this former RW issue does need to be dealt with.  

I have seen this over and over just as Cheryl has explained here.  

Today, I am realizing more and more from CCs who were “caught” with county sites on RW (when RW went down suddenly in 2017) that those CCs feel powerless in retrieving any of their former RW pages.  

We all had counties on RW for years — fortunately, some of us moved counties off RW when it came back UP after that long outage in 2017-2018.

But many CCs did not — and today the sites are stagnant on the rootsweb/ancestry and the ads are obnoxious for sure. No page editing, etc.

I fear that many of the CCs from the RW former days have gotten discouraged & moved on, leaving their genealogy efforts behind.    

This is a Challenge for sure for every USGenWeb State project site.  Rebuilding County site pages takes dedication and determination & TIME & EFFORT.  Many NEW site volunteers are needed, that is a known fact, too.

Cheryl is right.  Work a Plan B. and do so in timely manner. 

Thank you, Cheryl, for sharing this — All of us need to be aware & move toward preserving what is left of USGenWeb county sites still on the former RW.  One day, the pages will quite likely BE GONE.

Linda Ziemann, USGenWeb

County Coordinator with IA, MN, ND, SD, WI, NE

IAGenWeb ASC

SDGenWeb ASC

NEGenWeb ASC

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[Norma Hass]

I, too, agree that Cheryl offers good advice. I think any CC with a site on RootsWeb should prepare to move it to another server, and move sooner rather than later.

I have been trying to clean up some of the RootsWeb sites (AKGenWeb, IDGenWeb, ILGenWeb, NDGenWeb, NHGenWeb, and NVGenWeb). At first RootsWeb was helpful, providing me with access to the requested sites. (I placed links to the current sites.) However, during the last few months, RootWeb has only forwarded my requests to Ancestry, and I have heard nothing from Ancestry.

Norma

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[Dale H. Cook]

On 9/13/2022 9:01 AM, Cheryl Rothwell wrote:

> If your county is on Rootsweb you might want to start thinking about
> Plan B. Ancestry as Rootsweb is also notorious for not proving much
> notice when they decide to drop things.

I urge County Coordinators and State Coordinators to use a utility such
as WinHTTrack as a safety precaution to back up town, county, and state
sites on RootsWeb which fall under their purview. Rebecca Maloney and I
did that with MAGenWeb and it is well that we did so.
--
Dale H. Cook, Member, NEHGS, AGS, MA Soc. of Mayflower Descendants;
Massachusetts State Coordinator for the USGenWeb Project;
Administrator of https://plymouthcolony.net

[Kris Meyer]

Would it be possible to access any of the sites on RW with the way back machine?

https://archive.org/

Kris

IA SC

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[Timothy Stowell]

Kris,

Yes, but that is too tedious of a process, to grab page by page, a nightmare working through the directory of files, plus trying to grab all the images.

What Dale offered is 100% better way of getting files from old sites.  It is superior over getting from web.archive.org as it gives you the files just like you were pulling from the server whereas using web.archive.org gives one all the header / footer stuff a grab from there even for one page adds in a lot of garbage.

However, I use web.archive.org is to fill in pages that may have been deleted from the server from times past.

Tim Stowell

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[Martha A C Graham]

Good Morning,
Along with the ongoing situation with RW/Anc, it appears that another one of Joy's servers is down.
The usgwarchives.org site has a 2 year renewal in place, but the site is down.

Domain Name: usgwarchives.org
Registry Domain ID: 3502df4ac67d48738f19efec5b814e12-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: http://whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.whois.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2022-09-04T14:46:41Z
Creation Date: 2007-08-29T15:49:59Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2024-08-29T15:49:59Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC

Tim and Dale are correct, using HHTrack works the best. It is a free download and program. Superior in grabbing files.
I had files on RW / got passwords via Rebecca and Anne of Ancestry and got them moved. But, today I tried to log in to see if the passwords, etc still functioned, they do not.

Also, Like Norma, I tried to get info to get a PA County off of RW and they have not responded, its been a couple of months, but, that said, I went through regular channels, not through Anne.

Martha
CC Many Counties
ASC: ORGenWeb & AKGenWeb

[Timothy Stowell]

Norma,

I contacted Anne Mitchell <amit...@ancestry.com> as SC (MN) and ASC (NY) and asked that certain counties be assigned to me, one which included the resignation from the CC which 'gave' the site to me, the other where I am the CC of record but didn't have access to the RW site.  

In my notes to Anne, I ccd the SC and the NC in my request.  Her response was to change both very quickly on August 24th.

 The only downside I've had since then is that while they may have been assigned to me, password central doesn't work and subsequent messages to Anne have not given me a place so I can change the existing password to one I would use.  The last time that happened she had to do something on her end to send the change password email to me.

But, if that can be made to work, then SCs could ask that all the old sites be turned over to them, to at least grab all the files on the server.  I know in past experience and recently seen is that folks clearing out their RW account would leave a forwarding page.  That's all well and good.  But in a recent visit to such a site, I could barely see the message we've moved and click here as the page was covered in ads.

Tim Stowell

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[Dale H. Cook]

On 9/13/2022 1:20 PM, Timothy Stowell wrote:

> What Dale offered is 100% better way of getting files from old sites.
> It is superior over getting from web.archive.org

> <http://web.archive.org> as it gives you the files just like you were

> pulling from the server whereas using web.archive.org

> <http://web.archive.org> gives one all the header / footer stuff a grab

> from there even for one page adds in a lot of garbage.

Tim is correct. It is a much faster way of grabbing a site and the
results are much more satisfactory for building a replacement site.

I have had to grab sites from the Internet Archive twice. In both cases
they were hosted in private domains that vanished where the domain owner
had apparently passed away. This is another reason why SCs should keep
tabs on their CCs sites to see when they stop being updated, and conduct
a monthly roll call of their CCs so that when a CC stops responding the
SC can grab a copy of that county site in case it should vanish.

Our NC has a login to the entire MAGenWeb site in my private domain, and
my intention is that said login stay with the office of NC. Linda is
also my ASC for MA so her login will continue to be valid even if we
should get a new NC. I don't want the hard work of others to vanish if I
end up under a bus.

[Norma Hass]

Tim,

I'm not sure what you are trying to tell me.

I spot checked a few of my RootsWeb sites and all look fine to me.

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~akgenweb/

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~idgenweb/

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ndrolett/

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nvgenweb/

Norma

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[Joy Fisher]

It is http://usgwarchives.net that is active

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[Pat Asher]

Tim, Have you tried this link to reset your password?
<https://useraccount.rootsweb.com/websites/requestChangePassword>

Pat

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[David Gochenour]

Does the WayBack Machine Downloader that I found no longer work? It's a utility that downloads websites from the Wayback Machine, strips out all of the Wayback links, and sets up a directory on your computer just like HTTrack would. It's been a little while since I used it, but it worked really well. 

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

                             

[Timothy Stowell]

Norma,

I was speaking only of county sites that have a sole link - not the whole site or even index page.

Tim

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[Timothy Stowell]

David,

I used it last on 7/20 and it worked fine.

Tim S.

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[Gina Heffernan]

We haven't used that URL in a very, very long time. It's http://www.usgwarchives.net/.

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[Sandra Bauer]

For all the CCs for counties in Illinois, I am happy to host your counties on my server. I will gladly give you space, login and password to maintain your county websites on my server. I have unlimited space, sub-domain, and domain hosting on my account and I've had my account on the same hosting server for over 20 years. I am thoroughly happy with iPower, the company I use for hosting my websites.  I've had poor experience with GoDaddy from our use by the West Valley Genealogical Society in Arizona.. I am webmaster for their website: https://azwvgs.org.  iPower is more expensive than other web hosting companies, but I've never had a problem with them and they are always quick to respond to any communications I've had with them. I do not charge anyone anything for hosting their counties on my server.

I can pull all the code down from Rootsweb for you using HTTrack if you want.  This has worked for many websites I've done already.

Sandy Bauer

SC Illinois

(and currently CC for IL counties: Jefferson, Wayne, Marion, Clay, Hardin, Pope)

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