RootsWeb Newsroom

Recently we updated all of the RootsWeb graphics – these graphics are mainly used by site owners whose pages are hosted on RootsWeb. 

The graphics can indicate that your family tree has been posted on WorldConnect, that your site is hosted on RootsWeb or they can link to mailing lists and message boards.  Each graphic has instructions for how to add it to your site and in some cases there are also instructions for how to customize the graphic.  If you currently have an old graphic on your site we encourage you to update it. 

We appreciate your participation in the RootsWeb community!

In the broadest sense of the word we are all RootsWeb.  All of us who use the site, contribute our hard work and knowledge, and the thousands of volunteers who along with staff members put their heart and soul into the site…

 
One of the people who has been a RootsWeb fixture behind the scenes is Elaine – she has lovingly managed the message boards for many years and is now moving on.  We hope you join us in giving Elaine a huge THANK YOU for all of the work she has done over the years and in sending her our best wishes as she pursues other endeavors.

 
With big shoes to fill we are excited to introduce you to David Coleman.  David has taken on the Message Board and Mailing List responsibilities creating a one stop connection for Board and List administrators.  We hope that this makes life a little easier for our volunteers. 

 
And who else is there behind the scenes?  Along with David, Mike and Gerhard respond to help tickets, manage the features of the site, keep the RootsWeb Review on time and do many other things that we don’t see.  Randy and Bill manage the servers, fix the bugs, develop new features and keep the site going.  Lastly David (yes, we now have 2 David’s on the team) and I work to fill in the cracks and coordinate the management of the site.   

 
We are looking foward to a spending a great 2009 with you, our RootsWeb family!

We are very excited to announce that the server moves are complete!  The developers have been working tirelessly to make sure that things are all back in the right place.  As with all moves we may eventually find that there was something put in the wrong box or on the wrong shelf and we’ll tackle those small moves/fixes as we run into them.  Congratulations to the development team for making this move a success.

In last weeks RootsWeb Review I wrote an article about the World Archives Project and I wanted to clarify some questions that have come up.

The World Archives Project is still in the Beta testing stages.  So when you are using the tool and you see something you think could be improved, or if you run into errors please use the “Provide Feedback” link at the top of the page to let our team know about your experience.  We consider this a community effort and want to work together to make keying a good experience.

The second item I want to note is in regard to the benefits of the project.  Not only will the indexes be free to everyone, but active participants (those who key 900 or more records in a quarter) will have access to all of the images that are part of the World Archives Project.  In the future active participants will also be able to vote on what collections they would like to index.

Another benefit to the World Archives Project is the opportunity for genealogical and historical societies to partner with Ancestry in sponsoring data sets.  Partnering societies will have their logos and a link to their site displayed on Ancestry.com; we hope that this will bring more traffic to the society and to the project.  These societies will also receive a copy of the index and images for their own use.

If you want to read more about the project see the links below,

Ancestry Weekly Journal article 

World Archives Project Blog

World Archives Project Message Board

 
Please feel free to email questions that you have to worldarchivesproject at tgn.com.

Over the past few months we have seen a few changes to the RootsWeb team – we have been reorganizing responsibilities and have also added a few new team members.  Our two new members are working on the HelpDesk team and want to introduce them to you.

BreAnn has worked for TGN for close to 4 years.  She has worked in our member services department and was most recently a member of our advanced service team.  Her personal interests include movie watching, traveling, skiing and watching reality shows with her husband of 4 months!

Mike has worked for TGN for over 3 years and has developed a wide variety of experience within our member services department; his most recent role has been with the Technical Support team where he has excelled in providing both support to the members as well as training to new hires. His personal interests include genealogy, hiking and camping with his dog, and watching movie classics.
Gerhard, who most of you are familiar with, is now managing web accounts (accounts@rootsweb.com), is List Master (listmaster@rootsweb.com) and is also working on the RootsWeb Review.  He continues to enjoy working with the community members and volunteer administrators.

Elaine is still our message boards administrator and oversees all message board activities (messageboards@rootsweb.com) – this work keeps her pretty busy.

Anna is also still around and is working on improving the RootsWeb experience, she has also taken on additional responsibilities with other parts of the company. 

And we want to wish a fond farewell to Donna Popelish.  Donna has been with RootsWeb for over a decade – so she has seen a lot of changes and a lot of growth!  We want to thank Donna for her dedication to RootsWeb and the RootsWeb community!  We wish her the best with her future endeavors.