Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news-stl.cp.verio.net!news.verio.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail From: john@woodgate.org Newsgroups: alt.answers,alt.genealogy,news.answers,soc.answers,soc.genealogy.computing,soc.genealogy.misc Subject: [FAQ] soc.genealogy.misc Frequently Asked Questions Followup-To: soc.genealogy.misc Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 13:50:56 BST Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: Wed, 03 Nov 1999 13:50:56 GMT Message-ID: <34762@meertech.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: john@woodgate.org Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) about Genealogy. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to soc.genealogy.misc newsgroup, or the GENMSC-L mailing list. X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 939819207 mail2news:28929 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!finch-post-11.mail.demon.net!meertech.demon.co.uk X-Remailer: SmofList Digest v1.1a Lines: 271 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.answers:44954 alt.genealogy:125802 news.answers:168998 soc.answers:12596 soc.genealogy.computing:51779 soc.genealogy.misc:58872 Archive-name: genealogy/misc Posting-Frequency: 21 days Last-Modified: 1999/07/05 URL: http://www.woodgate.org/FAQs/socgmisc.html Frequently Asked Questions For soc.genealogy.misc Summary This regular posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and their answers about genealogy or Family History. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to the soc.genealogy.misc newsgroup or to the associated mailing list GENMSC-L. If you have any comments or additions, or would like to suggest further topics to be included, then please contact John Woodgate, (john@woodgate.org) Contributions by: Brian Randell, Ruth Satterthwaite, Stephen Wood, Johan Berteloot, Miles Abernathy Changes For This Version (5th July 1999) Moved to a new server. Removed all references to the Eworld server. Removed section on listserv as that software is no longer used. Updated the URL for the Roots Surname List (RSL) Copyright and Disclaimer Copyright (c) 1999 by John Woodgate. All rights reserved. This document may be freely redistributed in its entirety without modification provided that this copyright notice is not removed. It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Permission is expressly granted for this document to be made available for file transfer from installations offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet. This document is provided AS IS without any express or implied warranty. The author may be contacted at 50 Great Meadow Road, Bradley Stoke, Bristol, BS32 8DA, England. Questions Discussed General Interest 1. What are soc.genealogy.misc and GENMSC-L for? 2. Where do I get on-line information and guidance? 3. Are there any other sources? 4. What about the Mormon data? 5. How do I get the latest version of the FAQ? GENMSC-L 1. How do I subscribe to GENMSC-L? 2. How do I Unsubscribe to GENMSC-L? 3. How do I get copies of past messages? 4. How do I get the messages as a digest? 5. How do I get the messages as a index? 6. How do I get the messages as separate messages? 7. I keep getting 'unknown address.' What can I do? Roots Surname List 1. What is the Roots Surname List? 2. How do I add to the Roots Surname List? 3. Roots Surname List on the Web General Interest 1. What are soc.genealogy.misc and GENMSC-L for? soc.genealogy.misc is an unmoderated Usenet newgroup which is intended for any genealogy-related posting which is not appropriate for one of the other soc.genealogy.* groups. Possible topics include time-sensitive and/or wide audience announcements and requests; information about personal experiences and contacts; and solicitation of other researcher's opinions. Other topics include: 1. Questions about which soc.genealogy.* group is appropriate for a given question. 2. Announcements (special events; new products and services, etc.) 3. General advisories (scams, finds in used bookstores, etc.) 4. Wide audience requests: (does anybody have this book; advice about researchers in, or travel to a particular location; etc.) 5. Requests for opinions on ways to handle particular family situations. 6. Sharing of personal experiences that do not illustrate methods of general applicability. 7. Discussions about unusual names or nicknames, etc. All who have access to the Usenet soc.genealogy.misc newsgroup, or to the GENMSC-L mailing list are welcome to join and take part. This newsgroup is not moderated. Anything posted to the newsgroup will be seen by all the readers of the newsgroup and the mailing list and vice versa. Remember, what you post will be seen exactly as you post it. We therefore recommend 'lurking' in the newsgroup or mailing list (i.e. reading messages without posting anything) for a few days so as to get an idea of how people typically phrase their postings, and so learn how to best formulate any questions or comments, before you start posting to the newsgroup and mailing list yourself. Advertising or selling of a product or service is not in general regarded as acceptable. They should be placed in soc.genealogy.marketplace 2. Where can I get on-line information and guidance? There is a very good source of information on sites which have genealogical information. This a list being put together by John Fuller. John posts the list from time to time to the soc.genealogy.misc newsgroup. If you cannot find a copy on your local machine, you can FTP a copy from ftp.cac.psu.edu. The file is ftp://ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/genealogy/text/guides/gresinet.txt. There is also a list available on the Web at http://www.eskimo.com/~chance/ For the foreseeable future, it is likely that much of the information you will need will be found only in books, or on microfilm or microfiche in the various libraries, archives and record offices. Do not expect to be able to restrict your research just to data that is available to you on-line. 3. Are there any other sources? If you are using the World Wide Web (aka WWW, W3, Netscape, Internet Explorer) you can reach a page related to genealogy via the URL http://www.genhomepage.com/ It provides a lot of pointers to a lot of the genealogy related material on the internet. 4. What about the Mormon data? The pre-eminent source of genealogical information is in the Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). There are NO on-line access facilities to this immense library, but there are branches of this library in many towns and cities throughout the world. You would be well advised to seek out your nearest branch of this library and pay it an early visit. 5. How do I get the latest version of the FAQ? You can obtain the latest version of the FAQ from various sources: o Via anonymous FTP from ftp://ftp.woodgate.org/FAQs/socgmisc.txt o Via the WWW at the following URL http://www.woodgate.org/FAQs/socgmisc.html GENMSC-L 1. How do I subscribe to GENMSC-L? You may subscribe to the GENMSC-L mailing list by sending the following email message: To: GENMSC-L@rootsweb.com Subject: SUBSCRIBE GENMSC-L first_name last_name Do NOT include any other text such as a sig file. If you do, the LISTPROC software will attempt to read it as a series of commands and probably send you a message or messages saying it cannot understand you. 2. How do I Unsubscribe to GENMSC-L? You may leave the GENMSC-L mailing list at any time by sending the following message: To: GENMSC-L@rootsweb.com Subject: SIGNOFF GENMSC-L No name is needed. In fact it will not work if you put your name. 3. How do I get copies of past messages? If you think you have missed an important GENMSC-L message, you can get a copy of all the messages for a particular week. You can do this by sending the following email message: To: LISTSERV@rootsweb.com Subject: GET GENMSC-L LOGyymmw 4. How do I get the messages as a digest? If you would prefer to get the messages from GENMSC-L as a single digest, or 'super-message' containing all the messages for that 24-hour period, send the following email message: To: LISTSERV@rootsweb.com Subject: SET GENMSC-L DIGEST Some email readers have the ability to read a digest and to break it down into separate messages for you to read. 5. How do I get the messages as a index? If you would prefer to get the messages from GENMSC-L as a index to the digest, send the email message To: LISTSERV@rootsweb.com Subject: SET GENMSC-L INDEX The instruction on how to get messages which might be of interest are included in the index. 6. How do I get the messages as separate messages? If you would prefer to get the messages from GENMSC-L as separate messages, send the following email message: To: LISTSERV@rootsweb.com Subject: SET GENMSC-L MAIL 7. I keep getting 'unknown address.' What can I do? From time to time, you may find that when you try to send a reply to a GENMSC-L message, the message gets returned by your name server with the reason 'unknown address'. There is a good chance that the rootsweb.com machine will know the address. To send your message via this machine (NOT VIA GENMSC-L@rootsweb.com), you will have to modify the address you are using. For example, if the 'bad' address was: user_name@unknown.address.net To send this message via rootsweb.com, change the '@' to a '%' and add the @rootsweb.com to the end: user_name%unknown.address.net@rootsweb.com This means that you want to use the nameserver of rootsweb.com instead of your local nameserver. Roots Surname List 1. What is the Roots Surname List? The Roots Surname List is intended to help genealogical researchers compare and share data. Readers are welcome to submit the surnames they are researching for inclusion in the list, if they are willing to share their data with others who may be doing parallel research. Updates to the list are posted the first weekend of each month. Contact information for the submitters of the new or revised info will also be posted. 2. How do I add to the Roots Surname List? If you want to add the surnames you are researching to the Roots Surname List, complete the form at http://rsl.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/rsledit.cgi 3. Roots Surname List on the Web If you have access to the 'web', then you can conduct an on-line search of the RSL using the URL http://rsl.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/rslsql.cgi ------------------------------------------------------------------------ www.woodgate.org/FAQs/socgmisc.html / 5th July 1999 / webmaster