“When new to the Internet, I found a message on Guenther/Ginther/Gunter/Gunther (from Charlene Hazzard), and when I finally figured out how to write a message, got an answer from her. She had my line into what is now a different country in Europe and had it back two generations from there!” Mary Martha had a town name of Herstom in Germany. Charlene knew that this was the common nickname for Herbitzheim, which is now in France. Charlene had communicated directly with the Herbitzheim (aka Herstom) town historian until he died in 2000. “I had only a nickname for the town of origin, and Charlene explained the real name of the town. By the way, her message was from 1999, and she is the only one who had info from Europe,” said Mary Martha. “What an answer to a 30-year-old prayer. Thank you, God!”
Success Story: Where’s Amos?
I wandered into Uncle Hiram’s Chat Cabins at www.bhocutt.com. I thought it best to familiarize myself with my new “digs” before the following night’s grand opening and my hosting debut. Thinking I’d be alone to try this and that, I was surprised to find three chatters in a deep genealogical discussion. They told me that DearMYRTLE’s newsletter had guided them to this corner of cyberspace. I could tell by their conversation that they were veterans in the field, but I pressed on and asked if there was anything I could do to help them with their research. One chatter stepped forward and presented his brick wall. The ancestor’s name was Amos HURLBUT. He had recently found him in the 1870 census in Iowa and was looking for his parents. The census told him that he was born in New York and was 36 years old. He already knew that Amos and wife Sarah POTTER were married in New York and that Sarah was from Franklin County, New York. He ended by telling me that Marvin HURLBUT was also found in the same part of Iowa as Amos and may be related. Eager to please, especially on my first “unofficial” day, I told him I would look to my resources and see what I could find. I always feel it best to start with the facts, so I pulled up the 1870 census to see what the chatter saw. I easily found Amos in the Iowa 1860 and 1870 census, and I saw the Marvin HURLBUT he was speaking about. But this didn’t get me any closer to Amos’s parents. I thought, hmmm, if Sarah was from Franklin County, New York, maybe Amos was as well. So I decided to search the 1850 census with Soundex for HURLBUTs in that county, but all matches came up empty. Not an Amos to be found. I turned to other facts in the case. Who was this Marvin fella? I decided to search for his name to see what I could find. To my surprise, Iowa cemetery records showed a Marvin HURLBUT born in 1826 in Onondaga County, New York. This seemed to match the age of the Marvin previously found on the census. My next thought: If Marvin was born in 1826, he just might be a head of household in 1850. A search produced a Marvin HERLBUT in Chautauqua County, New York, matching the age and wife of the Marvin I’d been seeking. Marvin seemed to be found, but where’s Amos? Assuming Marvin was related and that families moved in packs, I decided to give a look in 1850 for other HURLBUTs in Clymer, Chautauqua County, New York. And it was there in the index where I found Daniel HERLBUT. When I viewed the census for Daniel, I let out a yell, for there was a son named Amos at home at the age of 17. Perfect match! I could have ended there, but my curiosity took over. I then found Daniel in the same town in the 1840 census. Then I found a Daniel in 1830 in Onondaga County (yes, the same county in which Marvin was born). Although I have a strong feeling, I cannot prove that Amos and Marvin are related or that Marvin is Daniel’s son. But the information I found on Marvin led me to find Amos. It just goes to show you that any piece of information found can be vital to your research.
—GenHostMike
Note
As with any online genealogy topic, search your favorite portal (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Excite, etc.) for “genealogy chat” (or “geneology chat”), and see what comes up!
Reach Out and Touch the World!
To me, what is exciting about all these different programs and formats is that they are all becoming interconnected. Your entry into AIM can be mirrored to your Twitter account; your Twitter tweets can show up on your Facebook page, and on and on.
As Amy Coffin pointed out, you can spend all day shooting questions, links, observations, and files to other genealogists and getting them back. You start typing messages with your buddy in Omaha on Twitter, and then your son at college calls you on Skype, and then your sister-in-law hails you on Google Talk, and suddenly you discover the day has slipped by. All forms of chat are this addictive. Beware!
Wrapping Up
• Internet messaging can take many forms and help you connect with other genealogists.
• Twitter is a form of “microblogging” that can help you keep up to date with the news in genealogy.
• Video chatting programs take instant messaging into audio and video as well as text formats.
• Instant messaging (e.g., AIM, ICQ, and Windows Live) is the most common form of chat and the simplest to use.
• All these forms are becoming more and more connected and usable on many platforms.
• All chat forms can be addictive—handle with care!
Chapter 7
Fun with E-mail: Mail Lists, Newsletters, and More
You can have more genealogy pen pals than you ever dreamed up using mail lists and forums dedicated to genealogy. Like chat and messaging, it can be addictive: You can spend all your day reading and replying to genealogy mail!
Electronic mail (e-mail) lists are discussion groups based on e-mail messages. All subscribers can send and receive e-mail from the list. Messages sent to the mailing list get forwarded to everyone who subscribes to it. No message is private when posted to the list, even though you will receive them with your e-mail program just as you do private messages. Replies to messages from the list get sent as well, where they are forwarded to all participants. These are often mirrored to sites such as RootsWeb or Ancestry, where forums of messages still reside.
Mailing lists can be completely automated, with a program taking care of subscribing people to the list, forwarding messages, removing people from the list, and sending your chosen lists to your e-mail box. Or, real people can get into the loop, handling any and all of the mailing list functions that programs can do. Either way, if it is a mirrored list, to read the messages on sites such as RootsWeb or Ancestry.com, you have to log in with your user name and password and then go to the forum of interest.
Such “moderated” mailing lists can take two forms: They might have restricted memberships, where you need to be approved to subscribe, or a moderator (or moderators) might let anyone join but will review each incoming message before it is distributed, preventing inappropriate material from getting on to the list.
Forums are message-based systems where the messages are held on a website, waiting for you to come read them. Most forums are divided into topics, which are general categories of messages. Topics are usually locations, surnames, and general genealogy issues. Within the topics are more specific messages called threads.
Forums may have an option to e-mail you a notice when a message is posted. Others may have the option to e-mail you all new messages one by one or in a collection called a digest, which makes them like a mailing list to the user. Certain forums are moderated; most genealogy ones are.
Many mailing lists and forums focus specifically on genealogy. In addition, many more lists and forums, although not specifically for genealogists, cover topics of interest to genealogists, such as ethnic groups, historic events (e.g., the Civil War), or research techniques.
Mailing Lists
With a decent mail program, participating in mailing lists is easy. You simply have to figure out how to subscribe, manage, and unsubscribe to a list. Often, the instructions are included in the mailing list’s home page.
Subscribing to Mailing Lists
Say you want to know more about genealogy in the DNA for a certain surname. Sure enough, mail lists exist for that. Searching for POWELL DNA MAILING LIST in Google, you find the RootsWeb page with details on the list. The following shows typical information for such
a list:
POWELL-DNA-L
lists2
Topic: The POWELL-DNA mailing list is for the discussion and sharing of information regarding DNA projects for the Powell surname and variations (e.g., Howell, Pauwel, Pauwels, Pouel, Powel, Powells, Powels). Additional information can be found on the Powell Surname DNA Project website below:
There is a Web page for the POWELL-DNA mailing list at www.flash.net/~parino/powell-surname-dna-project.htm.
For questions about this list, contact the list administrator at [email protected].
Subscribing. Clicking on one of the shortcut links below should work, but if your browser doesn’t understand them, try these manual instructions: to join POWELL-DNA-L, send mail to [email protected] with the single word subscribe in the message subject and body. To join POWELL-DNA-D, do the same thing with [email protected].
Subscribe to POWELL-DNA-L
Subscribe to POWELL-DNA-D (digest)
Unsubscribing. To leave POWELL-DNA-L, send mail to [email protected] with the single word unsubscribe in the message subject and body. To leave POWELL-DNA-D, do the same thing with [email protected].
Unsubscribe from POWELL-DNA-L
Unsubscribe from POWELL-DNA-D (digest)
Archives. You can search the archives for a specific message or browse them, going from one message to another. Some list archives are not available; if there is a link here to an archive but the link doesn’t work, it probably just means that no messages have been posted to that list yet. Search the POWELL-DNA archives Browse the POWELL-DNA archives
Now you know how to subscribe. Because you are sending this message as a command to a mailing list program, it’s best to put “END” on the line below “subscribe.” That way, should your automatic signature slip in, it will be ignored by the list program. If you do not do this, it’s very likely that you will get a message back describing all the different ways the program does not understand what you sent.
You will receive a welcome message, which you should save to a text or document file. It will tell you how to manage your subscription to get off the list, suspend it temporarily, and prevent your own messages to the list from coming to you from the server.
An important point to note in the listing: Most mailing lists have two e-mail addresses. You use one address to subscribe or change how you use the mailing list and another to post messages to the other people on the mailing list. Some mailing lists might have a third address to use for certain administrative chores, such as reporting some violation of the list’s rules to the moderator. One of the most common and annoying mistakes one sees on mailing lists is when someone posts “unsubscribe” to the address for posting messages instead of to the same address used to subscribe. Some folks simply refuse to look at the directions and continue to post “unsubscribe” messages to the message address over and over until someone flames them. Don’t be one of these people.
Note that in some mailing list programs, you can send a command—who or reveal—to find out who is subscribed to a certain list. To prevent your address from being listed in the who command, you often have to send a specific command to the list server. The welcome message will tell you how, but it’s usually the command conceal.
Success Story: Board Leads to Reunion
The most meaningful success I have had was because of posting to boards. I found an aunt I never knew I had. Got to go meet her. She lives about 40 miles from me. I was adopted, so finding a biological relative was great. It was from an old posting, so keep posting everywhere. You never know when you will see results!
—G.F.S. Tupper, host of Maine Genealogy Chat, Beginners Chat, and Beyond Beginners Chat on AOL
There are other mailing lists besides the ones at RootsWeb (although you do need to check out both www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maillist and www.lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com)—for example, Yahoo! Groups.
If you go to http://groups.yahoo.com and search for “Genealogy”, you will find discussion groups on Ethnic Origin, Location, General, Lineages and Surnames, Royal Genealogies, and Software, and all discussions can be e-mailed to you just as the mailing list mentioned previously can. The difference is that you have to be a registered user on Yahoo! (which is free). Other than that, you set whether you want each individual posting or a digest format with the whole day or week in one message.
Forums You Might Explore
Forums are message exchanges on a website or portal. They are usually just like mailing lists, except the messages stay on one site instead of being delivered to your e-mail box. However, there are exceptions: Some forums do have an e-mail option so that messages on topics you choose are e-mailed to you. In that case, a forum will look just like a mailing list to you. You can visit the forum often to see if there are new messages, but people just take advantage of the notification option.
You can specify that you want to know when someone posts to the “SPENCER” board, for example, and an e-mail message will be sent to you when that happens. Sometimes the actual message will also be delivered to you.
Forums
Genealogy forums abound on the Internet. Genealogy.com has 14,000; RootsWeb.Ancestry.com has 161,000 message boards. The best way to find what you want is to use a search engine for the topics.
For example, let’s assume I would like to discuss Powells in South Carolina. In Bing, I could search for “Powell South Carolina genealogy forum”. That gets millions of hits, the top ones from GenForum.com, Genealogy.com, Genealogy.about.com, and Ancestry.RootsWeb.com.
Success Story: The Web Helps Mobility-Challenged Genealogist
Being mobility challenged and on a very limited income, I have to depend mostly on the Internet at this time for my genealogy work, and I’ve had some success. I had a query on an Irsch surname board for my great-grandfather and the fact he had married a Pitts in Noxubee, Mississippi, in 1860. I just happened to decide to go to the Pitts surname board and posted the same query for a Lucretia Emmaline Pitts, who had married a Frank Irsch. I received a tentative confirmation from someone whose great-grandfather had a sister who had married an Irsch about that time. A few back-and-forths later, we thought we might have a connection; I asked if she had ever heard the names Aunt Em and Uncle Henry Hill. I had heard my grandmother speak of them, but didn’t know if they were blood relatives. We both knew we had established the connection. “Aunt Em” was the sister of her great-great-great-grandfather, Lafayette Newton Pitts, and another sister, Lucretia, had married Frank Irsch. Their father’s name was James W. Pitts, and their mother’s name was Mary. We still haven’t discovered her maiden name. She had a picture of some of the Irsch family that Lizzie Eaton-Bennett had identified for them as her brother and family and Grandma Pitts. She wasn’t sure if the older woman was her Grandma Pitts, but she didn’t think so. Lizzie Eaton-Bennett was my grandmother, and if she identified the older woman as Grandma Pitts, it would have been her grandmother, Mary ?-? Pitts. I remember my mother telling me of Aunt Annie Irsch and Grandma Pitts sending Christmas gifts when she was little. Now we proudly know we have a picture of our shared great-great-great-grandmother. We are working on other shared lines, but I would call this a wonderful tale of success from the Internet!
—Louise McDonald
All these forums will also have search functions, so I can click a link and then start searching for my ancestors among the messages.
Another good technique is to use a search engine to search for the name, date, and place you are looking for. This will result in hits from both forum and mailing list archives. Or visit some of the top sites listed in Chapter 20 and search those forums. Finally, search the portals mentioned in previous chapters. Here is a short sampling:
• JewishGen (http://www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen/DiscussionGroup.htm) The Jewish Genealogy site hosts two or three dozen groups based on geography, projects of the site, and other interests.
• Yahoo! (http://groups.yahoo.com)
Yahoo! has thousands of discussion groups based on surnames, geography, and ethnicity. Some are public, which means anyone can post to them, and some require you to sign up before you can post to them. Go to the Yahoo! Groups page, and search for “genealogy” and/or the surnames you need.
• GenForum (http://www.genforum.genealogy.com) Genealogy.com’s discussion groups are lively and searchable by keyword.
• Genealogy Register (http://www.genealogyregister.com) This site lists links to personal family histories, and features message boards for discussion.
• Family Tree Circles (http://www.familytreecircles.com) Here you can post your research information and connect with other Family Tree researchers.
• Wikitree G2G (http://www.wikitree.com/g2g) Wikitree.com has a forum where you can post general genealogy questions and learn more about how to use Wikitree. The site can be searched by keyword, and you can elect to have an e-mail sent to you when a question is answered. See Figure 7-1.
FIGURE 7-1. The Wikitree G2G forum is a good place to ask about genealogy, place queries, or learn to use the site.
Finding More Mailing Lists and Forums
Even though it may seem like we’ve covered more mailing lists than you can shake a stick at, many more exist. To find more, first check out the RootsWeb website for their ever-growing list. If you point your web browser to www.rootsweb.org/~maillist, you’ll have access to the hundreds of mailing lists hosted by RootsWeb.
Another site that keeps a list of discussion boards is Genealogy Today. To find some forums, lists, and boards, go to www.genealogytoday.com/genealogy/city/genforum.html.
For years, the best categorized and detailed list has been the one maintained by John P. Fuller. He died in 2009, and Linda Lambert and Megan Zurawicz are carrying on the list in his memory at www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail.html (see Figure 7-2).
Genealogy Online Page 12