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@meertech.demon.co.uk)
Copyright (c) 1996,1997 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, BS12 8DA, England.
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:
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
There are two sources of information on sites which have genealogical information. The first is a document in the LISTSERV archives called FTPCAC. You can obtain a copy of this by sending the following email message:
To: LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
GET GENEALOG FTPCAC
The second is 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 /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.
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
It provides a lot of pointers to a lot of the genealogy related material on the internet.
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.
You can obtain the latest version of the FAQ from various sources:
To: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
Subject: <Leave Blank>
send usenet/news.answers/genealogy/misc
To: listserv@meertech.demon.co.uk
Subject: <Leave Blank>
get socgmisc
end
You may subscribe to the GENMSC-L mailing list by sending the following email message:
To: LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
SUBSCRIBE GENMSC-L first_name last_name
Do NOT include any other text such as a sig file. If you do, the LISTSERV software will attempt to read it as a series of commands and probably send you a message or messages saying it cannot understand you.
You may leave the GENMSC-L mailing list at any time by sending the following message:
To: LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
SIGNOFF GENMSC-L
No name is needed. In fact it will not work if you put your name.
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@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
GET GENMSC-L LOGyymmw
For example LOG9506A will provide a copy of all the messages handled by the GENMSC-L list for the first week of June 1995.
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@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
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.
If you would prefer to get the messages from GENMSC-L as a index to the digest, send the email message
To: LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
SET GENMSC-L INDEX
The instruction on how to get messages which might be of interest are included in the index.
If you would prefer to get the messages from GENMSC-L as separate messages, send the following email message:
To: LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
SET GENMSC-L MAIL
>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 mail.eworld.com machine will know the address. To send your message via this machine (NOT VIA GENMSC-L@mail.eworld.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 mail.eworld.com, change the '@' to a '%' and add the @mail.eworld.com to the end:
user_name%unknown.address.net@mail.eworld.com
This means that you want to use the nameserver of mail.eworld.com instead of your local nameserver.
LISTSERV is a computer program which Apple Computer Inc uses to control the various mailing lists it hosts. It is also used by a number of other sites for their mailing lists. It also handles the archives and searching the previous messages. Please try to learn the difference. Send a message to GENMSC-L if you want to communicate with humans. Send it to LISTSERV if you want to talk to a computer. Getting this the wrong way round makes you liable to feel 'a bit silly.'
Probably the most important thing you can do would be to request an index from LISTSERV. This will list every file available on the machine. So before you start to ask questions, send the following message:
To: LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com
Subject: <Leave Blank>
INDEX
and see if your questions are answered there. After receiving the index, you may request the file you want by using the "GET" command in the same manner.
There is also a LISTSERV at meertech.demon.co.uk which holds a series of FAQs and copies of other regular postings. To get a list of what is available, send the following message:
To: LISTSERV@meertech.demon.co.uk
Subject: <Leave Blank>
INDEX
END
GENEALOG is an area on the eworld computer which is used to store the many textual files which pertain to genealogy. The GENEALOG area has more than 175 files, all of which are available to any user via normal email. The list is being added to on a regular basis. Watch out for messages in soc.genealogy.misc telling you about a new file.
You can request a listing of the files by simply sending the following message to LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com
INDEX
It will normally take about 10 minutes for the LISTSERV computer to reply, sending you a message with the entire list of files.
There is an index of the files maintained at http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/filelist.html
Three files in particular are worth requesting. These are the welcome files which are sent to new subscribers to the ROOTS-L mailing list. To get a copy of these files send the following message to LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com:
GET ROOTS-L WELCOME
GET ROOTS-L WELCOME1
GET ROOTS-L WELCOME2
To request a file from GENEALOG, just send the following message to LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com:
GET GENEALOG filename
Please replace "filename" with the name of the file you want. If required there is a helpfile to explain the use of GENEALOG in more detail which you can obtain by sending the following message to LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com:
GET ROOTS-L helpfile
One file of particular interest to new readers is the file SRCHFILE which describes how to search the ROOTS-L Database for a given surname. To request a copy of the file, just send the following message to LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com:
GET GENEALOG SRCHFILE
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. To obtain a copy of the entire list directly from the ROOTS-L LISTSERV, send the following message to LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com:
GET FAMILY INDEX
The LISTSERV will return by email, the names of the files containing the full current index. The list has been broken up into smaller pieces to facilitate network transmission. The INDEX will give you the name of the files you want, which you can then obtain in the same manner as you obtained the index.
If you want to add the surnames you are researching to the Roots Surname List, send the following message to LISTSERV@mail.eworld.com:
GET FAMILY README
and follow the instructions.
If you have access to the 'web', then you can conduct an on-line search of the RSL using the URL http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/Genea/rsl