ROOTSWEB REVIEW: Genealogical Data Cooperative News Vol. 2, No. 21, 26 May 1999. Circulation: 304,747+ (C) 1998-1999 RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative. P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798 Editors: Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG CONTENTS. News and Notes at RootsWeb (RootsWeb Puts It Together: Surname Resources at RootsWeb; Late Breaking News; Global Search Engine for GenConnect; RootsWeb Gets It Together: Bob Tillman named RootsWeb CEO; Obituary Daily Times Passes Three Million Mark; Internet Relay Chat (IRC); RootsWeb Demographics: Anonymous Survey; RootsWeb Report on TalkSpot); Questions and Answers; Connecting through RootsWeb; Mailing Lists; Web Pages; USGenWeb Archives Project; USGenWeb Census Project; Letters to the Editors; Humor; Reprint Policy NEWS AND NOTES AT ROOTSWEB ROOTSWEB PUTS IT TOGETHER. Have you ever wished you could look up *everything* at RootsWeb that relates to a particular surname? Now you can! Click on the new option SURNAME RESOURCES at RootsWeb's main page or go directly to: . Click on the letter of the alphabet for the surname of interest, and then select it from the list that appears. This will take you to a "surname resource cluster," where you can search for your surname in numerous databases. For example, using BANKSTON you would find: , where you could search "B" WEB SITES, the OBITUARY DAILY TIMES, or: o The ROOTSWEB SURNAME LIST (RSL). RSL search options are by surname, Soundex, or Metaphone (the latter two are "sounds- like" matches). You can search for updates from the past two months, last month, last week, or for any mention. o TRANSCRIPTION PROJECTS. You might check to see if your immigrant ancestors' names are listed at the Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild (ISTG). o PRIMARY RECORDS AT ROOTSWEB (from USGenWeb Archives and RootsWeb Searchable Databases). o GENERAL LINKS AND SEARCH ENGINES. There are three options. o ROOTSLINK link registry. You can add a new link also. o SEEKER search engine, which returns surname matches from Web pages -- there is much "hidden genealogy" that this search will help you find. o SURNAME HELPER search engine finds queries and surname registrations posted at various genealogically-related sites on the Web, with participating sites including many USGenWeb and WorldGenWeb sites. All GenConnect boards are indexed in Surname Helper. o MAILING LISTS. Descriptions of lists that relate to this surname, subscription instructions, and links to the archives so you can search or browse past postings. o GENCONNECT. Click on GLOBAL SURNAME SEARCH to find queries that mention the surname of interest that are posted in connection with any county, state, or country in the world. Or click an icon for one of the seven automated boards that together make up a "suite" of boards available for surnames and localities (Queries, Bible records, Biographies, Deeds, Obituaries, Pensions, and Wills). RootsWeb hopes that putting these links under one SURNAME RESOURCES roof will help everyone find all the buried treasure. * * * LATE-BREAKING NEWS. Late in the day on 26 May 1999, Pam Carey Durstock announced: "All done! Complete list of cluster surnames can be found at " 41,000+ GenConnect boards created. 3,000+ Mailing lists created. 6,692 Calendars created. 6,692 Guestbooks created. 6,692 Cluster pages created and (re)generated. * * * GLOBAL SEARCH ENGINE FOR GENCONNECT. Randy Winch just installed the latest upgrade to the Global Search Engine for GenConnect. New Features: expanded search capabilities, including ability to restrict the search to a certain "type" (query, Bible record, bio, deed, obit, pension, will). Sort by date, location, person posting, or subject (and also by ascending or descending order); Posted in the last: day, two days, week, two weeks, month, two months, three months, six months, year, two years, or millennium; Search all of GenConnect, just one country, or just one state. All of these can be used in conjunction with each other in order to fine-tune your search. But, if you want it all, the results are now split into first 50, next 50, etc. Powerful! * * * ROOTSWEB GETS IT TOGETHER. RootsWeb is pleased to announce that Bob Tillman has accepted the job of Chief Executive Officer. Besides being RootsWeb staff, Bob is a graduate of Stanford Business School and has decades of relevant experience. Bob will be working on the strategic direction of RootsWeb and relations with folks who might advertise, sell goods, or otherwise support the site. To the extent anyone cares about titles, Karen and Brian are "Co-Founders and Co-Chairmen." Most of our effort will continue to be focussed upon the strategic direction of RootsWeb and the technical issues of how we make this show happen. Brian will still be tending the generator when the power fails. Brian also remarks that he is most grateful for the opportunity to stick his unsuspecting college roommate with a healthy fraction of the paperwork associated with keeping RootsWeb alive, since he finds tending the paperwork even more painful than the generator. * * * The OBITUARY DAILY TIMES topped the three million obituaries mark in early May 1999. Congratulations to the project's founder, Denis SAVARD, to its brains and brawn today, Walter STYLES, and to the thousands of volunteers whose efforts have made and continue to make it grow. * * * INTERNET RELAY CHAT (IRC) (SERVER: irc.rootsweb.com; PORT: 6667) For links to instructions on using IRC, including special instructions for AOL users and Unix users, go to . At you will find a SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS by day, time given as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), channel, and description. To convert the scheduled GMT to your local time, at the top of the page select the relevant GMT and change the next box, Selected Local Time. to your time zone. Among the meetings scheduled are HTML Discussion, German Genealogy, Canadian Genealogy, UK and Ireland Information Channel, IIGS University Chat, FreeBMD Information Channel, Colorado Genealogy, New England Genealogy, Ontario Genealogy, Canadian Genealogy, Australia, German-Russian Genealogy, French Genealogy, and Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg. An addition to the schedule now posted is DearMyrtle's Monday evening sessions (Channel: dearmyrtle) starting at 2200 Eastern Daylight time, on U.S. Federal Census Records (31 May) and Organization (7 June). * * * ROOTSWEB DEMOGRAPHICS. Recently one RootsWeb user mentioned she is age 99 while another volunteered that she is age 87. The Internet is a great leveler. Ages are irrelevant when we share an interest and are able to communicate. Still, we're curious. If you are willing to participate in this ANONYMOUS survey, please visit to record in which age group you find yourself: less than 20, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89, 90-99, 100-109, 110-119, or 120 and counting. * * * ROOTSWEB REPORT ON TALKSPOT. On Saturdays (1600 to 1800 Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) or 2300 to 0100 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)) participate in "Generations -- Find Your Roots" . The RootsWeb Report by Myra Vanderpool Gormley is given between 1630 and 1700 PDT. You also can join TalkSpot.com shows in progress from: . To join TALKSPOT and the Generations -- Find Your Roots program you need: (1) a computer with a sound board and speakers; (2) a web browser (Explorer, Netscape, AOL, etc.); and (3) Real Audio software for listening to audio files. If you don't have Real Audio, download a free copy at: Then visit this Web site a day or two ahead of the schedule program and register a user name with TalkSpot (it's free). . * * * * * QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q. What is a "board"? A. A board is a Web-based query and data system, where information is automatically input with a form, instantly displayed, and fully indexed and searchable. Which means that users can input a query or piece of data on a GenConnect board, and not only can they see it instantly, but so can anyone else searching our system for that surname. Q. What are the advantages of using these boards instead of other things on the Web? A. Both your data and your questions will receive an extremely wide amount of coverage on the Web, greatly increasing your chances of making connections. It's instant and fully automated, and will even send you an e-mail to let you know that someone has either answered your question, or has added additional data to yours. Q. When you refer to a "cluster" -- what is meant? A. Cluster is the name given to a grouping of individual resources for a single surname or a single location, including include a mailing list (and its archives), a GenConnect suite (one suite equals seven boards), a home page -- USGenWeb (USGW), WorldGenWeb (WGW), or personal pages, possibly a USGW archives directory, RootsWeb Surname List (RSL) submissions, etc. All of these resources are searchable. Each surname and each location has some sort of resources (information) available on them. Cluster pages bring together all those resources and provide both links and search boxes so that RootsWeb users don't get lost. If a user wants to know what is available at RootsWeb for his/her particular genealogical interest -- it is all there in one spot. Q. How do I find the surname boards? A. Visit the index located at: Q. Why were these particular surnames selected? A. We used the most common surnames in the RootsWeb Surname List Q. How many boards does RootsWeb have? A. There are 45,557 right now -- 14,985 pre-existing boards and 30,572 just added. The goal is to have about 90,000 to 100,000 boards within a month. Q. Are all of the boards and lists new? A. No. Many of the lists and boards already existed. No change in the administration of those lists and boards is being made. RootsWeb staff is only administering the new boards and lists. Q. Who administers the new lists and GenConnect boards? A. RootsWeb staff members, but eventually they will be available for adoption by volunteer administrators. Q. How can users best utilize these new boards? A. The original concept comes from the KyGenWeb (Kentucky GenWeb), which made the databases on the county level cross-linked so you can find John Doe wherever he is. GenConnect provides the database and the means of linking, between counties, states, countries, and now with the surname boards, linking the names to any place they are found in one central place. Q. What are calendars and how can I use them? A. The calendars, which resemble a typical wall calendar, are there for you to log important events such as family reunions, speaking schedules, conferences, or conventions. As we develop the county and country clusters, I expect there'll be more entries along the lines of local genealogical society meetings, founders' day, major dates in history and other items. Q. What purpose do guestbooks serve? A. They allow feedback that can be used to improve services and resources, and you may make a genealogy connection or two from them. Q. What is "Doc's RootsLink?" Where do I find it? How do I use it? A. RootsLink is yet another automated, powerful searchable resource. It collects, stores, organizes and displays user- input URLs -- ones for home pages that the users either maintain themselves, or have found to be worth mentioning to others. The links are searchable by either topic or by keyword. * * * * * CONNECTING THROUGH ROOTSWEB. Thanks for sharing your stories. I have been using your service [RootsWeb Surname List (RSL)] since January 1999 only. In that short time, I have learned more than I thought possible and met other relatives and have a new extended family. This from the Internet and being isolated in a rural village in Japan and from my kitchen! I feel obliged to make a contribution and will be able to do so in the summer months. Yours is truly a great service and a beacon in the night in a world that is doing all it can to promote hate. Through RootsWeb, I have found a renewed hope for humanity. Sincerely, A.K. "seiji" Uehara * * * Your Web site has been a blessing. After 47 years of search my sister and I found each other through the Internet and your Web site. Found our lost mother too. Just wanted to say thank you. Virginia Ann Castromayor-Legrand * * * I first posted to the BELL list in October of 1998 and didn't receive any hits on it. I watched the list postings for a few months without seeing any connections so I decided to post again. In December of 1998, I posted my line again showing John Bell being my oldest known relative and John Peter DeMutt Bell being his son. Not more than 30 minutes later I received a note saying "Hi Cousin, John Peter DeMott Bell is my reat-great-grandfather!" After that initial contact, another cousin wrote to me who actually had more Bell information and a copy of a newspaper that told about my great-grandfather's death. For the past six months we have been writing back and forth and correcting a lot of my initial information that I had received from other undocumented sources. I am getting old pictures gathered to send and we are planning to meet next month. Robert Bell * * * * * MAILING LISTS. For an index to most user mailing lists hosted by RootsWeb, visit . IF YOU DO NOT HAVE WEB ACCESS but would like to know if a RootsWeb-hosted mailing list exists for a particular surname, send a SUBSCRIBE request in accordance with the instructions below, filling in the desired surname where the example shows [name of list]. If the list exists, you will receive confirmation that your address has been added to the list. If the list does not exist, your message will bounce back to you with a message advising there is no such address. Try alternate spellings. For example, there is no list for KLINE, but there are KLEIN and CLINE lists. You have nothing to lose but the time it takes to prepare and send the SUBSCRIBE request. NEW MAILING LIST REQUESTS. USGenWeb and WorldGenWeb hosts may have FREE locality mailing lists for the areas they host and for that purpose may ignore the "Contributors only" warning on the list request page. Please request new mailing lists at: TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE from any RootsWeb-hosted mailing list, send an e-mail message with only the word SUBSCRIBE (or UNSUBSCRIBE) in the subject and the body of the message to [name of list]-L-request@rootsweb.com (for mail mode) or to [name of list]-D-request@rootsweb.com (for digest mode). FOR EXAMPLE, if you have an interest in Presbyterian church history, send a SUBSCRIBE message to: . NEW SURNAME MAILING LISTS [This week an additional 3,233 surname mailing lists representing some of the most popular surnames in the RootsWeb Surname List (RSL) were created. Check them out at: .] BEHREND BOUNDS CARNEY (includes KEARNEY and variants) CLUTE (includes CLOET, KLUTE, and variants) DEATON HASKELL HUSER LAGRANGE (includes LA GRANGE, DE LA GRANGE, and variants) LAWS-UK (Laws surname; includes variants, primarily in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and her former colonies) MAILANDER (with emphasis on the line(s) from Germany) MERSEREAU (includes MERCEREAU, MERCEREAN, MEISEREAU, and variants) NEDROW OVERACKER PFEIFER (includes PFEIFFER and variants) RAINEY VEDDER MISCELLANEOUS BRITISH-AMERICA -- The British North America Act in 1867 created the Dominion of Canada. This list will consider those persons who immigrated to North America during the period of British influence. CEMETERY-PHOTOS -- For anyone interested in preserving their families' monuments on film (i.e., gravestones, monuments, and war memorials) CT-RIVER-VALLEY -- The Connecticut River Valley is the area where the migrants from Massachusetts Bay Colony settled early as 1635 KYJacksonPurchase-LORE -- A list discussion about 19th- and early 20th-century families and lore in the Kentucky Jackson Purchase region (Ballard, Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Marshall, and McCracken Counties). PRESBYTERIAN -- The Presbyterian church history and genealogy * * * * * NEW WEB ACCOUNT REQUESTS. Please see the instructions at . NEW WEB SITES. Some of these might not yet be accessible. If one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or a week. . Note that the ~[tilde] before the account name is required. FOR EXAMPLE, to visit the Tyrol, Austria Web page, go to . AUSTRALIA ausact -- Capital Territory auscck -- Cocos Island auscxr -- Christmas Island auslordh -- Lord Howe Island ausnsw -- New South Wales ausnt -- Northern Territory auswa -- Western Australia AUSTRIA autkae -- Carinthia autnoe -- Lower Austria autste -- Styria auttir -- Tyrol U.S.A. ctcplain -- Plainfield (city), Connecticut intsgs -- Tri-State Genealogical Society (Indiana) lastjohn -- St. John Parish, Louisiana okclevel -- Cleveland County, Oklahoma paclimer -- Limerick Twp., Pennsylvania paunknow -- Unknown County, Pennsylvania tntrousd -- Trousdale County, Tennessee HOME PAGES. VAN DEN BRANDT Family Tree * * * * * USGENWEB ARCHIVES -- CENSUS IMAGES NORTH CAROLINA. 1870 Person County Census USGENWEB ARCHIVES -- OTHER SUBMISSIONS ALABAMA. 1900 Marshall County Census OHIO. Medina County. Medina Gazette Obituary Index 1996-5/1999 OHIO. 1920 Meigs County Census (Letart Township) * * * * * USGENWEB CENSUS PROJECT ARCHIVES -- TRANSCRIPTIONS ARKANSAS. 1860 Pike County ARKANSAS. 1870 Pike County CALIFORNIA. 1850 Santa Barbara County FLORIDA. 1850 Jefferson County FLORIDA. 1850 Putnam County ILLINOIS. 1860 Shelby County MISSISSIPPI. 1860 Jackson County NEW YORK. 1860 Genesee County (Partial -- Pembroke) OHIO. 1850 Seneca County (Big Spring, Hopewell, Pleasant Twps) PENNSYLVANIA. 1850 York County (Partial -- Dover Township) TEXAS. 1850 Colorado County TEXAS. 1850 Ellis County (Partial -- Navarro) TEXAS. 1850 Sabine County * * * * * LETTERS TO THE EDITORS may be posted to the GenConnect board at http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/RWR-LettersToTheEditor or sent to RWR-Editors@rootsweb.com. Advertising is not acceptable in public libraries. Why should it be allowed to intrude upon this hall of research? Stanley A. Wickman [Your editors, more comfortable with lost ancestors and misplaced modifiers, asked Bob Tillman if he would field that one.] Public libraries are supported by your tax dollars. University libraries are supported by your tax dollars and by tuition and alumni donations. In contrast, RootsWeb is a private enterprise, supported neither by tax dollars nor by tuition (i.e., mandatory subscription fees, such as charged by ancestry.com). Only about 7% of RootsWeb users contribute voluntarily. If you are one of these contributors, we thank you. To support RootsWeb, one of the 100 largest traffic sites on the Web, requires hardware, software, bandwidth, and highly skilled people. Even with staff donations of time, the computer resources cost a great deal of money. RootsWeb has no choice but to advertise, both to support the growth of the site and to provide new features to RootsWeb users. Bob Tillman, RootsWeb CEO * * * * * HUMOR. The anonymous source who slipped this into your editors' e-mail box last week claimed that it is a genuine news item. From "The Guardian": "After being charged 20 pounds for a 10 pounds overdraft, 30 year old Michael Howard of Leeds changed his name by deed to "Yorkshire Bank is Run By Fascist Bastards." The Bank has now asked him to close his account, and Mr. Bastards has asked them to repay the balance by cheque, made out in his new name." * * * * * PERMISSION TO REPRINT articles from ROOTSWEB REVIEW is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, PROVIDED: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice appears at the end of the article: Written by Previously published by RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative, RootsWeb Review, Vol. 2, No. 21, 26 May 1999. Please visit RootsWeb's main Web page at . TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE, send e-mail that says only SUBSCRIBE (or UNSUBSCRIBE) to: . BACK ISSUES OF ROOTSWEB REVIEW are available for download from: .