I just could not have this site without saying a few words about RootsWeb. RootsWeb is the final design of something started a long time ago as home computers go. Back when I was in the Navy and on Arpanet and such, there appeared things about Genealogy on servers at the Education sites, then a few on Company sites with the sure growth to a few Government sites. The biggest source of data however was on BBS sites. They joined together and during the low cost time of night would pass information from one to the next across the land.

As the Internet as we have today grew out of the closely held and financed by the Government net, using gopher, telnet, and ftp we were allowed to store more and get to it with slow, sometimes unusable net tools.

Some time, and I have lost the date in my old gray matter there was a young man at CERN Labs who had this great idea, that we could use something he was working on to allow faster transfer of data, and maybe be able to use graphics without having to convert them into ASCII.

At my second career site, we had computer nerds, (well they would not call themselves that) who wanted to work with the new stuff and see if it was good. I had the good/bad luck to work with them, installing miles of Coax and Fiber to implement the idea. And you know what, it worked. Slow at first due to the equipment used in that time, but it worked, and now we know it as the WWW.

Now how does this tie up with RootsWeb. Well the same two names kept showing up on all of the above modes of data transfer when Genealogy was used or mentioned. As the net developed further, so did their sightings. By now you know that I am writing about DR. Brian Leverich and the lovely Karen Isaacson. They had a dream if you can put it that way, and that dream became RootsWeb.

Now why am I telling you this? I am about to ask you to go to sites.rootsweb.com, and look at the site, and while there, decide to join them at the $12 level at least. Two cups of coffee a month. Not much. Why? Well having been a designer, buyer, and installer coordinator for sites like their site, I know it cost in the 10's to 100's of thousands of dollars each year to run the site. If we want this great resource to be available, we all need to give a little.

Now off my soapbox, balanced on the pine stump, and back to what this site is all about. Oh while you are there, look up sites.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/history.html for a short version of the History of Rootsweb.