RootsWeb Newsroom

If you have a freepages account and wish to change the background color of the acknowledgement banner you will need to follow the instructions below:

As planned, the updated mastheads will start appearing later today. We receive a lot of positive feedback on the content of your sites and are proud to be able to be a small part of your success.

If you would like to change the masthead on your site from the new default gray color to the green masthead please follow the instructions below.

Place a file named “banner_select” in your public_html directory. (Yes, it is a text file, containing only the text listed. But there is no file extension; the file should be named “banner_select”). This file should contain the text “BasicGreen” and nothing else.
Hosted projects who are using custom mastheads have been sent additional emails with specific instructions. If you have not received these instructions please contact the leader of the project you belong to.

If you have questions or feedback please send an email to accounts@rootsweb.com or contact our HelpDesk.

We appreciate your patience and support during these changes.

In August of last year we updated the RootsWeb logo on the site and added new mastheads to all of the Freepages and Homepages sites that we host - click here to read that post.  We are now ready for the addition of mastheads to the remaining pages hosted on RootsWeb.  There has been some discussion and confusion in the community about what the mastheads will look like and when they are coming so we want to bring you in the loop on what will be happening.

 • We are currently planning to add the mastheads on May 21.  A communication will go out    to the account holders prior to the addition of the mastheads (based on the email addresses we have on file).

• Minor changes and updates are being made to the  Freepages, and other, account agreements.  A few of the changes you will notice are the inclusion of the mastheads and clarification of our terms.

• Based on member feedback we will be changing the background color on the banners to a soft grey. This is to help make sure that the masthead doesn’t clash with your page content.  For anyone who prefers the current green background, we will provide a small bit of code you can add to your page in order to get the green version instead of the new grey default.  To see an example, this is the masthead that will be added to the remaining hosted pages:

• We will also be adding specialized mastheads for our largest hosted projects—this will allow for both an acknowledgment of our hosting and inclusion of the project’s brand within the masthead.  Just like for the green background mentioned above, we will provide a small bit of code to account holders within these project that they can use to get the specialized masthead instead of the default masthead above.  Here is a sample of the specialized masthead:

We love having the opportunity to provide resources that assist our community in sharing their family history research with others, and the hosting recognition these mastheads include make it possible for us to continue to offer hosting and other services.  If you have feedback on how we can better support the community please send a message to feedback@rootsweb.com. We appreciate the support of our members during these changes and look forward to announcing future additions and improvements to the site.          

  

 

 

 

 

The past year has seen a number of changes to the RootsWeb Review. First, long-time editor Myra Gormley retired. Then, after ten years as a text publication, the Review was changed to an HTML format. One more major change is in the works.
As of April 2008, the RootsWeb Review will become a monthly publication; you will receive your copy on the second Wednesday of every month.

Although the frequency will change, you will still get the same great Review you’re accustomed to. Jana Lloyd, Mary Harrell-Sesniak, and Joan Young will continue to contribute articles to the Review, and we will continue to keep you up-to-date with the latest and greatest at RootsWeb. And of course we still want to hear your experiences with family history: your stories, tips, photographs, and the fun and interesting things you come across in your research. In addition, we will also be adding a short, new section with genealogy how-to tips.

If you’re anything like us, you receive tons of e-mail everyday, and it is sometimes overwhelming to sort through it all, let alone read it. We hope that by changing the Review to a once-a-month publication we will reduce some of that e-mail overload while still keeping you as up-to-date as ever with what is happening on RootsWeb.

Look for one more weekly issue on 26 March and for the first monthly issue of the Review on 9 April.

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the post from Tim about the domain change and I wanted to follow-up on some of the miscommunications that are circulating.

- www.rootsweb.com will still bring you to the RootsWeb homepage after the domain change.   We will be redirecting all of the old URLs.

- We are not changing anything on RootsWeb other than the URL.  We will still offer the same features and support.

- RootsWeb is now and will remain a free online experience.

- Your data will not be taken away from you.  We host the mailing lists, message boards, sites etc. but you own the information that you post or upload.

- As some of you found out, some URLs on the www.rootsweb.ancestry.com domain will already work.  This was necessary as we were testing the new URLs and preparing for the change.

If you have questions that I haven’t addressed please send them to feedback@rootsweb.com.