Mailing Lists

Mailing list are working normally and the archives have been slowly coming back online.

All Mailing List Administrators are required to have a registered and verified email. Those that do not have been removed as list administrators.

To get started managing your subscriptions, go to Setting Up My New Mailman Login and if you are an administrator you will find more info at Setting Up My New Mailman Admin Login.

As of today, any email that is sent will go directly into a new archive. We are in the process of importing the old archives into the new archives and due to the massive amount of content, that process will take time. We will continue to update you on the progress when we can.

Ancestry Wiki

The Ancestry Wiki is now the RootsWeb Wiki. All the same content that you love right there at your fingertips.

Obituary Daily Times

Obituary Daily Times is back. It has a new secure code base and will be updated on a regular basis.

Hosted Web Sites

We are bringing hosted websites back in phases.

We have identified about 600 USGENWEB sites to bring back first. Owners of these sites should have received an email with instructions on how to reset their password and get to their content. These sites are now available from the appropriate USGENWEB page. If you believe you should have been contacted, please contact us: Questions about USGENWEB. Please include the name of your site and any other information you have.

Other sites will be reinstated upon request. We will update this page in the coming weeks with a link to make this request.

For those that would just like to download their websites contents from RootsWeb, we will publish instructions on how to do it the week of July 10th.

Family Trees/WorldConnect

Family Trees/WorldConnect: Family Trees or WorldConnect allows you to upload a GEDCOM file and publish it for others to see. It is currently in a read-only, searchable state. Our software engineers and security team are working on a plan to update WorldConnect with the ability to upload new GEDCOM files in the coming months.

We appreciate your patience as we bring the different pieces of RootsWeb back online in a secure manner. You, our contributors and viewers, are what makes RootsWeb the vibrant, free genealogy community it is.

The Rootsweb Team

RootsWeb FAQ

Why is this taking so long? RootsWeb has many terabytes of data uploaded by users across its various features. The site also has hundreds of thousands of lines of code. We have been scanning the data using a variety of tools, and that takes time. We’ve also been examining the code and the underlying systems. Some code is being refurbished, and some will need to be more fully rewritten to add the layers of security needed in this day and age. We know it may be frustrating, but we are committed to returning data to you in a safe manner.

Have you found any other security problems? We haven’t found any other problems, but we want to thoroughly update systems to ensure the safety of your information.

Is Ancestry going to start charging for RootsWeb? Ancestry is not going to start charging for RootsWeb. When functionality returns to the site, you will still be able to view content for free.

I’ve heard not everything is coming back online, is that true? We will be returning WorldConnect and Mailing Lists back to their full functionality. Other features are still being evaluated. In cases where we are unable to bring back previous functionality or content, we will explore ways for people who uploaded data to retrieve it if we don’t feel we can put it back online safely.