It's not about them backing up the content, it's about them cutting you off from your content. You need to back up your own content on your own computer in case they decide to cut you off, charge you, close the service. And in fact, should back it up elsewhere in case you get serious computer problems.

I've recently read Yahoo Geocities is closing. I hope people are saving their content while they still can.

I signed up for Rootsweb Review recently and can't help noticing that it's monthly now instead of weekly, and no new user sites, no new user databases. This is very different from a few years ago - before ancestry.com took over.

I also can't help but notice that every usgenweb site I go to is neglected, filled with dead links, if anyone has bothered to add links at all. People don't reply to emails.

I don't know what's happening to online genealogy, has it shifted elsewhere, or is it just disappearing?

My site is still on rootsweb's freepages. If they close, I can put it on my webspace I pay for. I thought it better at rootsweb because of the community. I think the community has been neglected since ancestry took over.

Oh, and I think the new messages system at ancestry is pretty darn slimy. Contact other members through their website, and only for paying customers? So that if you have anything in those messages you want to access, you have to remain a paying customer? Don't they have enough confidence in what they are providing that they don't have to resort to such slimy tactics? The fact is that they provide easy access to lots of real records, and for a pretty decent price. That should be enough.

If these message boards are being abandoned, where are the people going?

I guess I'm too tired to even try to keep up with the latest fad. And I guess I'm not all that interested in doing so.