RootsWEB, yes indeed, Ancestry.
Now how could this be a pay-to-play site, when there you are chatting out loud without paying? 
To be fair Rootsweb as well as hosting many mailing lists, which used to be popular before the forum format became available also provides free unlimited webspace for thousands of FREE websites.
A number of my free websites have pages hosted on Rootsweb servers.
When Ancestry took over Rootsweb they kept the mailing lists and the Webpages free.
Most users find the mailing list format unwieldy and dated when compared to forums.
Cheers
Guy
