>From: ac331@freenet.HSC.Colorado.EDU (JAY HALL)

In the second half of 1993 there were several requests for
personal comments on commercial services and their value to
genealogists posted to ROOTS-L. Rather than post all of the
responses "raw", here is a summary of information about
commercial services from: 1) Responses to those queries on
ROOTS-L, 2) Comments read or heard over the past year or so in
various places, and 3) Personal observations. Please note: I do
not represent these services, nor do I endorse any of them. This
file is intended only as a starting point, and you are
encouraged to contact these services directly for more complete
information, especially on current prices and services.

GEnie: There is a HUGE genealogy area, organized into maybe
  1,000 different categories and topics covering geographic
  areas, religious and ethnic groups, single and multiple
  surnames, companies, projects, etc. However, usage has fallen
  off quite a bit since the change in the basic monthly rate
  from $5 to $9 in July 1993. Even so, some areas persist with
  heavy activity, and the addition of "free" Internet mail has
  drawn or kept some people. 10 people used their GEnie Internet
  connection to subscribe to ROOTS-L as of October 1993.
  According to the Jan 1994 _Wired_ magazine, Genie's membership
  was 250,000-400,000.

CompuServe: Again, a change in fees has caused some migration
  from this service. It may have fewer local numbers then GEnie,
  but this may just be a matter of personal perception. There is
  some feeling that it's hard to use. Even so, there seems to be
  a lot of activity in the genealogy areas. Internet mail is
  available, and 8 people used their CompuServe account to
  subscribe to ROOTS-L as of October 1993. _Wired_ Jan 1994
  gives Compuserve 1,500,000 subscribers.

Prodigy: Talk about out-migration! Virtually every mention of
  Prodigy I've seen in the last few months starts off with the
  number of people leaving. Message volume appears to be down
  dramatically, and messages are kept for only a short time
  (possibly 7 days to 1 month, contrast with GEnie, where they
  seem to be kept forever). Ease of use and value to other
  members of the family (games, shopping, e-mail) keep some on
  the service. As of October 1993 there is no one subscribing to
  ROOTS-L via Prodigy. _Wired_ Jan 1994 says Prodigy had 2
  million members.

America On-Line: A growing service with a graphical interface
  (like Prodigy). Like GEnie and CompuServe, AOL has "live" (or
  "chat") sessions for a real-time exchange of ideas, and is
  considered cheaper than Prodigy. Message areas are heavily
  used, and appear to be growing rapidly. AOL offers a free
  connection kit (special comm software is required), with some
  free introductory connect time. 4 ROOTS-L subscribers did so
  via AOL in October 1993. _Wired_ Jan 1994 says 400,000 people
  were online with AOL.

Delphi: Apparently growing rapidly, especially popular because
  it offers full Internet access (e-mail, ftp, telnet, usenet
  news, etc.). Frankly, if I didn't already have several other
  Internet accesses, I'd probably be using Delphi myself. Has a
  new general genealogy forum as well as special-interest
  genmealogy forums, and is gaining devotees. 37 Delphi users
  used its e-mail services to subscribe to ROOTS-L in October
  1993. Currently, Delphi is offering a free 5 hour
  introduction. Standard subscription fees are $10/4 hours in a
  calendar month, and $20/20 hours online in a calendar month
  (no carryover for unused time). Internet access (telnet and
  ftp) is an additional $3/month. Members note that there are
  extra charges for storage. _Wired_ Jan 1994 said 60,000 -
  100,000 people were on Delphi.

Digital Express Group: Commercial vendor in the Washington, D.C.
  area. Full Internet access is about $200/year (in 1993) with a
  $20 signup fee, for 6 hours/day. After 6 hours/day it's $1/
  hour. 5 megabytes of storage is included, with a surcharge of
  $1/month/megabyte above the limit of 5.

Netcom: Commercial service. $17.50/month unlimited full Internet
  access.

Texas Metronet: Commercial service based in Dallas, Texas. Used
  by several ROOTS-L subscribers. Offers varying levels of
  Internet access at differing prices. $20/month buys full
  Internet access with no time limit and 2 megabytes of storage.

MountainNet: Commercial service in Morgantown, West Virginia. A
  flat fee of $25/month gets Internet access with no time
  charges.

The WELL: Formerly a very large BBS in the San Francisco Bay
  Area that has become a commercial service on a national scale.
  Charges are $15/month, with a usage charge of $2/hour, billed
  by the minute. Full Internet access.

The World: Similar to the Well, operating out of Boston. Sorry,
  I don't have any specifics on pricing, but assume it is about
  the same as the Well.

Infochi Systems: Commercial system in Chicago. Full Internet
  access for $250/year.

Freenets: Not strictly commercial, freenets are sponsored by
  community-based organizations (often hosted by colleges or
  universities), and are generally free to subscribers, who do
  not necessarily have to reside in the area. Freenets offer
  both local and Internet mail, as well as community information
  and access to some databases of general information. Several
  freenets support genealogy Special Interest Groups, a trend
  that seems to be gaining momentum, with calendars of local
  events, local genealogy queries, and access to either ROOTS-L
  or the soc.roots newsgroup. 50 ROOTS-L subscribers did so
  through their freenet mailboxes in October 1993.

  Some of the freenet systems available at the end of 1993:
  Cleveland Freenet (OH)
  Denver Freenet (CO)
  Traverse City Freenet (MI)
  Hawaii FYI (HI)
  CapAccess (DC)
  Vaasa Freeport (Finland)
  Big Sky Telegraph (MT)
  Buffalo Freenet (NY)
  Columbia Online Information Network (MO)
  Heartland Freenet (IL)
  Lorain County Freenet (OH)
  Medina County Freenet (OH)
  National Capital Freenet (Canada)
  Tallahassee Freenet (FL)
  TriState Online (OH)
  Victoria Freenet (Canada)
  Wellington CityNet (New Zealand)
  Youngstown Freenet (OH)
  Toledo Freenet (OH)

MCI Mail and AT&T Mail: These companies offer e-mail accounts
  with toll free (800) access for about $3/month. Incoming mail
  for an ATT box is free, but outgoing mail is charged by the
  kilobyte, heavily loaded on the first 3 to 5 K (MCI is
  similar). 7 people subscribed to ROOTS-L using one of these
  two services in October 1993.

Military Accounts: Military accounts are granted to both
  military personnel and civilians depending on their need to
  access military computers. In some cases, a military mailbox
  (.mil) may be used by a civilian who doesn't even work on the
  military base referred to. 37 people subscribed to ROOTS-L via
  a military mailbox in October 1993, about equally split
  between Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Educational Accounts: In October 1993, 521 people had ROOTS-L
  subscriptions ending in .EDU, indicating an academic
  institution in the U.S. This includes most of the freenet
  accounts, but does not include most accounts in Canada, the
  U.K., Australia, etc., most of which (among ROOTS-L
  subscibers) also appear to be academic accounts. The account
  holders are a mix of teachers, students, and freenet users.

Business Accounts: A lot of businesses (usually high-tech) are
  connected to the Internet, and some of their employees have
  e-mail boxes. It's a little tricky to determine how many use
  their employee mailboxes for personal genealogy, but it
  appeared that in October 1993 at least 2-3 dozen subscribers
  to ROOTS-L did so with business accounts. In addition, many
  businesses allow their employees to read Usenet news without
  personally subscribing to mailing lists.

Local BBS's: (I'm just cracking open the lid on this jar of
  worms, not actually opening it and pouring them out.) The
  number of boards seems to continue to grow, as do the number
  of genealogy conferences, and the number of boards carrying
  those conferences. There are several networks carrying at
  least one general-purpose genealogy topic, and several
  special-interest genealogy topics. BBS's usually offer both
  local (to the BBS) e-mail and "echomail", or mail that is
  broadcast to the entire net (similar to ROOTS-L). Some
  networks also allow person-to-person e-mail. Prices range from
  free to $15/month. Some local BBS's also offer direct Internet
  access, with a unique mailbox, usually via UUCP or other
  dial-up Internet access. In some cases, BBS's grow large
  enough to be considered commercial services themselves (for
  example, the Well, the World, Canada Remote Systems, etc.).
  Again, it's not easy to determine which subscribers connect
  directly to ROOTS-L via a BBS, but at least 6 did so as of
  October 1993.

Multiple Use: There is a number of people (big number? small
  number? prime number?) who use several services, and have
  multiple mailboxes. For example, Karen Isaacson does a great
  amount of good on GEnie and elsewhere (thanx Karen!), but uses
  her MCI Mail account for her ROOTS-L subscription. I have both
  GEnie and freenet accounts, but use AT&T Mail for
  subscriptions. I received notes from people who used as many
  as a half-dozen services, pointing out the good and bad for
  each. However, the consesus seems to be that for one-stop
  ancestor shopping (if they had to be limited to one), ROOTS-L
  was the best choice. But only one person was willing to
  voluntarily forget the rest and stay exclusively with the one
  list (although several expressed their dismay at having to do
  so, due to lack of personal time).

Suggested Sources:

PDIAL and NIXPUB. Two files available via anonymous ftp (and
  even via e-mail) from a variety of machines on the Internet.
  Updated periodically, these include contact information for
  publicly-accessible computer systems (commercial services and
  Unix BBS's) offering some sort of Internet access.

_Dvorak's Guide to PC Telecommunications_. John C. Dvorak and
  Nick Anis. Osborne McGraw-Hill, New York.

_The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog_. Ed Krol. O'Reilly
  & Associates, Sebastapol, CA.

_Boardwatch Magazine_. [Monthly] 8500 W. Bowles Ave., Suite 210,
  Littleton, CO 80123.

I'm always open to any additional comments and observations you
wish to make, either about services already in this file, or
about others that need to be added to it. Please do so privately
to avoid clogging up the ROOTS-L list.

 Jay Hall, Everton Publishers  |  165 South West Temple
 jayhall@attmail.com           |  Salt Lake City, UT 84101