As many of you already know, the site curator / owner of www.Identifyyourbreyer.com passed away in the spring of 2021. Janice's site has been a mainstay of our hobby community for over 18 years, and everyone is justifiably concerned about the future of this great reference site.
As of now, we haven't heard any updates from Janice's family, and we assume that her estate (which will include the website, since it created some income for her through showing ads) is still held up in Probate Court. In the US, Probate takes a long time to settle in a good year... with the addition of COVID deaths, I'm sure things are horribly backlogged. Her family has paid for the hosting to keep the site online while her estate gets legally sorted. Once that happens, we expect that they'll choose another hobbyist to pick up the reins by transferring ownership of the site to that person. Until the estate is settled, though, they cannot access the site nor transfer ownership.
Meanwhile, there is still need within the hobby for updated release information, and several "supplemental" sites have popped up. Two are run by reputable collectors, which show new releases since Janice passed. Below are links to their sites so you can choose and bookmark whichever one suits you best. Both of these site owners are now working together to make sure their sites have fully updated information, which is great, and both are doing this out of respect to Janice as well as the whole community. They both also have asked for (and been granted) permission to use Triple Mountain photos.
It's great that these folks are doing their own work, and both plan to turn over their work to whomever takes over IDYB once Janice's estate is settled, to help get the original site up to date more quickly.
Meanwhile, another site popped up that was an exact duplicate of the original IDYB... It was called IDYB2, and you guessed it - The only thing changed was the addition of the number "2" in a couple of places. This site stole Janice's work and legacy and tried to make it their own. They even still had Janice's name at the bottom of the page as the contact. That is NOT acceptable in our hobby - Janice spent more than 30 hours per week keeping IDYB updated for all of us, so we won't allow the theft of her work. The counterfeit site was reported to its registrar and has been taken offline. We encourage anyone who wants to build a site to create it themselves - Never steal someone else's work.
10 comments
Update on IdentifyYourBreyer.com:
https://identifyyourbreyer.com/#Search
Great news, Eleda!
I just “discovered” the site that I enjoyed and found most helpful for many moons is no longer. What a shock bc it was just “always there.”
I don’t know Janice but to find out that she lost her life brings tears to my eyes.
What a wonderful human she must have been to spend so much time creating and maintaining such a nicely planned, user friendly website for folks to enjoy.
May God Bless Janice.
Heartfelt Regards to her loved ones
Karen j
Good to know. Such a loss to the hobby
I remember being shocked and distraught when I read that Janice had passed away, and I never even met her – that’s how much she meant to me and to the Breyer community. I have been a little panicked at the thought of her wonderful website and all its priceless, extensive information being lost to the web of time. I am happy and relieved to hear that there is hope it will continue after the legalities of her estate are settled. And THANK YOU, Eleda, for providing alternative sources of research meanwhile. As you know, I have many horses in my humble herd, and keeping track of them is a challenge and a blessing. When I can’t sleep at night, I organize and name my horses. I wish I could’ve thanked Janice while she was still alive for the amazing work she did for people she didn’t even know. So I’ll say it now: Thank you, Janice, from all of us. May your legacy continue.
Thank you for this! I was trying to log on to the site – 4-23-2022 – and now all I get is errors and don’t connect; it was fine yesterday. I am so sad to hear Janice passed, I didn’t know. I rely on her site everyday researching my collection and tracking down horses I want. I guess this explains why it wasn’t being updated; hope someone in the family will continue her work!