11/18/2009
By Diane Haddad
Two genealogy Web sites limit library patrons' free access to subscription-only content.
Two genealogy Web sites recently limited library patrons' free access to their subscription-only databases.
Last October, MyFamily.com <
www.myfamily.com> (the parent company of
Ancestry.com 
<
www.ancestry.com > and other genealogy sites) ended Michigan State Library patrons' short-lived home access to AncestryPlus, an institutional version of Ancestry.com's databases.
And MyTrees.com <
www.mytrees.com>, a popular site for sharing family tree files, announced in early December that it had canceled free access at libraries and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Family History Centers (FHCs) <
www.familysearch.org>.
From Oct. 1 to Oct. 19, Michigan residents could log on to the state library's Web site from home and use state identification to access AncestryPlus. But the remote access shouldn't have been offered in the first place, says MyFamily.com spokeswoman Mary-Kay Evans. The company licenses databases to its partner Thomson Gale <www.gale.com>, a provider of Web-based information to educational institutions, which then sells the databases to libraries as AncestryPlus.
Evans says MyFamily.com never authorized Thomson Gale to add free remote access to library contracts. "AncestryPlus is meant for use in libraries, not as an at-home product — that would compete with our sales [of Ancestry.com subscriptions]." Library users can still access AncestryPlus databases from computer terminals at subscribing libraries.