I took over the late Peter Francis Jr. research website thebeadsite.com in 2018 when David Neville retired. He saved the site when Peter passed away in 2002.

It was important to me to keep it on line. It is the longest-running bead site on the internet. Peter did nearly all of the web-work himself, as far as I know. So that makes him a bead researcher- web pioneer, in my eyes.

In 2018 the server fees were reasonable. They doubled 3 years later in 2021 and again they have doubled from 2021, and I can no longer justify the cost.

The Peter Francis research bead collection was housed at the Museum of Natural History in New York City when I was last informed. They did not respond to my inquiries and my only contact there with regard to the collection has retired. Other “heavies” in our bead-collecting world are uninterested in keeping the site on- line in the traditional way.

So I am letting it go , approximately August 23rd, with sadness and gratitude. I’m glad I could keep it on line for 6 more years. I never met Peter Francis, though a number of you have, at the great bead symposiums that he used to co-host in Santa Fe.

You can still copy thebeadsite. I’m told there are a number of apps one can use to copy a website (thebeadsite is small enough to make this possible). I just used an app for Apple devices called SiteSucker to do just that. It’s a $5 download.

And I’m told that thebeadsite is already backed up on
web.archive.org (aka the wayback machine)

http://www.thebeadsite.com/