ROOTSWEB REVIEW: RootsWeb's Genealogy News Vol. 3, No. 9, 1 March 2000, Circulation: 401,783+ (c) 1998-2000 RootsWeb.com, Inc. RootsWeb.com, Inc., P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798 Editors: Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG RootsWeb HelpDesk: Advertising: Media Contact: DONATIONS HELP ROOTSWEB HELP YOU AND ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED. For details about support levels, benefits, and payment options (check or credit card), e-mail or visit . Mailing address: RootsWeb.com, Inc., P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798. (Please write your e-mail address on all correspondence and checks.) * * * * * IN THIS ISSUE: o News and Notes at RootsWeb (PasswordCentral; Design Contest Update; WorldConnect; Notable Kin -- Walt Disney's Wizard; Tigger and PML; RootsWeb in the News; Behind the Scenes at RootsWeb) o RootsWeb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees (Germanic Ancestry) o Connecting through RootsWeb o New Genealogy Mailing Lists o New Genealogy Web Pages o GenConnect o USGenWeb Archives o Letters to the Editors o Humor o Reprint Policy, Back Issues, How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe * * * * * NEWS AND NOTES FROM ROOTSWEB RootsWeb announces a brand new FREE service, PASSWORD CENTRAL Have you ever forgotten your username or the password for your GenConnect boards or the mailing lists you manage? Do you remember the mailing lists to which you subscribe, or where in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) or on which WorldConnect GEDCOM you have left Post-Em messages? Do you want to find your RootsLink links or Personalized Mailing List (PML), RootsWeb Surname List (RSL), or Web space username(s) and password(s)? Now you can go to one place and request all these things, and the information will be e-mailed to you in a few minutes -- and only you can receive it. If you have used more than one e-mail address since discovering RootsWeb, go back and redo the process for each e-mail address. It's fun and painless. Many of us have printed the results to save, but you can go back any time to recheck your information. To ask a technical question (not a genealogical query) or to make a suggestion about PasswordCentral, visit GenConnect's Password Central Support Board at PasswordCentral was made possible by the great work of its developer, Pam Carey Durstock, and the generosity of RootsWeb's financial contributors. Please consider joining those who help RootsWeb help you. To learn how you can help, please visit * * * DESIGN CONTEST UPDATE. Judging of pages submitted for the design contest has been delayed until 31 March 2000. * * * WORLDCONNECT RootsWeb's WorldConnect GEDCOM database now contains 21,794,169 names, continuing its steady growth of more than one million names per week. Could we have imagined this five years ago? Two years ago? Last year? Well, maybe last year. Congratulations everybody. Pioneering *is* all it was cracked up to be, and you were there. You can participate in the WorldConnect project even if you have input only a few generations of your family tree into your genealogy software program. If you don't use a computer program to organize and store your information, but would like to learn more about some of the options, see "Using Technology to Dig Up Roots," lesson three of RootsWeb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees * * * NOTABLE KIN: WALT DISNEY'S WIZARD. Did you know that the creator of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck was linked to one of the accused wizards of Salem, Massachusetts? Some of you have links to the late Walt Disney (we know because we checked WorldConnect this afternoon and discovered that there are already four GEDCOMs in the database showing a link to the famous cartoonist). Learn more about Walt Disney's ancestry , wizards, and the Salem Witch Trials at * * * TIGGER AND PML. As viewers of Disney's "The Tigger Movie" have discovered, Tigger could have used some help with his genealogy. Alas, not even the wisest heads in the Hundred Acre Wood knew how to help Tigger in his quest to find his family tree. Rather than spending days wandering haphazardly through the forest, Tigger could have been using RootsWeb's many resources to help him find out whether, indeed, "the wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm not the only one." He could have used RootsWeb's PERSONALIZED MAILING LIST (PML) which would allow him to enter multiple complex search terms and receive by e-mail a notice each day of any new posting that matches these terms on the RootsWeb Surname List, or any of RootsWeb's 17,400 archived mailing lists or 140,000 message boards. PML is a special "thank you" benefit available to RootsWeb Sponsors ($24/year and above). * * * ROOTSWEB IN THE NEWS. RootsWeb was named one of the 101 best family history Web sites in the April 2000 issue of Family Tree Magazine, now on newsstands nationwide. The full list is posted at * * * BEHIND THE SCENES AT ROOTSWEB. Dr. Brian Leverich was overheard explaining the facts of life to a RootsWeb programmer the other day: ". . . you've *got* to trap and gracefully handle all the different ways the connection can fail: the remote host can't be found, the remote host won't open a TCP/IP connection, the remote host won't finish the transaction at the application layer . . . Be paranoid, because all the possible (and dozens of impossible) kinds of failure will occur." [No worries!] **PAID ADVERTISEMENT** The March/April issue of FAMILY CHRONICLE features an article on "Researching Your Irish Roots" by renowned genealogist Angus Baxter. Other articles include "10 Best Local Library Resources," "Organizing Your Family Records," "How to choose the Right Genealogy Software," "Why Film Research May Still be Your Best Choice," "Web sites Worth Surfing," and many others. Top genealogy writers have this to say about FAMILY CHRONICLE: Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG--"If you haven't discovered FAMILY CHRONICLE you are in for a treat"; Dear MYRTLE--". . . this is a must have magazine"; Carllene Marek--"FAMILY CHRONICLE is one of the very best genealogical magazines available today." Find out how you can obtain a trial copy by visiting **END PAID ADVERTISEMENT** ROOTSWEB'S GUIDE TO TRACING FAMILY TREES. In addition to brief, interactive online genealogy lessons, you'll find links to resources at RootsWeb and elsewhere on the Internet. New this week is Lesson 26: Germanic Ancestry (also Austrian, Dutch, Belgian, Liechtensteiner, Luxembourger, and Swiss). INDEX TO LESSONS WHERE TO BEGIN? WHAT'S IN A NAME? USING TECHNOLOGY TO DIG UP ROOTS (genealogy software) DEATH, TOMBSTONES, AND CEMETERIES MARRIAGE RECORDS AND EVIDENCE BIRTH RECORDS WHAT'S THE QUESTION? WHY YOU CAN'T FIND YOUR ANCESTORS CENSUS RECORDS: SOUNDEXES, INDEXES, AND FINDING AIDS SOCIAL SECURITY DEATH INDEX (SSDI) AND RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD TAXING TALES CREATING WORTHWHILE GENEALOGIES: EVIDENCE, SOURCES, DOCUMENTATION, AND CITATION MILITARY RECORDS (WORLDWIDE) MILITARY RECORDS (UNITED STATES) TRACING IMMIGRANT ANCESTORS NATURALIZATION RECORDS CHURCH RECORDS FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS HERALDRY FOR GENEALOGISTS CITY DIRECTORIES AND NEWSPAPERS IRISH, SCOTS-IRISH, AND SCOTTISH ANCESTORS ITALIAN AND HISPANIC ANCESTORS SCANDINAVIAN ROOTS CANADIAN, FRENCH-CANADIAN, ACADIAN, AND FRENCH CONNECTIONS AFRICAN AMERICAN, NATIVE AMERICAN, JEWISH, UNIQUE PEOPLES GERMANIC ANCESTRY (plus AUSTRIAN, DUTCH, BELGIAN, LIECHTENSTEINER, LUXEMBOURGER, SWISS) More to come. * * * * * CONNECTING THROUGH ROOTSWEB. Thanks for sharing your stories. I had photocopies of old Washington, D.C. marriage registers from the local library, suggesting that my great-grandfather (who came to California in 1860) still had brothers and sisters living in D.C. I knew that one of the girls had married a Robert BARRETT in the 1850s, but little more than that. I came across a posting from a Robb Barrett who was looking for descendants of his original American ancestor, Robert Barrett, who lived in Washington, D.C. in the 1850s. The e-mails flew back and forth from California to Illinois, where he was located, and he then put me in touch with his online grandfather in Phoenix, Arizona, who confirmed the entire story for me. The real clincher to all this is that the Barrett line on our family tree is the largest, more than 300 members. Many of them are still living in the D.C. area, and have gone to school or otherwise been acquainted with other relatives, without ever knowing that they were all cousins to one another! I've been back there for several visits since 1998 when we made the connection, and am so happy to know so many great people from my father's family, now numbering nearly 1,000 on the charts. Frank Dunnigan [Editors' Note: Found your cousins online at RootsWeb? Join a mailing list at then post a message (use good bait and land a big fish!) and/or post a query to a GenConnect board . Leave a message as well as do a search of the RootsWeb Surname List (RSL) at and, of course, post your GEDCOM to RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project and do regular searches of its rapidly growing database at . These are just a few of the ways you can make your own connections through RootsWeb.] **PAID ADVERTISEMENT** %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% NEW ON-LINE GENEALOGICAL LIBRARY www.heritagebooks.com/library Try It Today! HERITAGE BOOKS, INC. 1540 Pointer Ridge Place, Bowie MD 20715 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% **END PAID ADVERTISEMENT** MAILING LISTS. For an index to most genealogy mailing lists hosted by RootsWeb, visit NEW MAILING LIST REQUESTS. 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, to discuss British orphans sent to Canada between 1880 and 1930, send your SUBSCRIBE message to NEW SURNAME MAILING LISTS, GENCONNECT BOARDS, AND CLUSTERS Bergandine, Boxdorfer Catton, Cowfer Dowis, Dubreuil, DwyFearn, Fearne, Fitzwilliam, Funkie Getchall, Greenhaw Householder Keirnes, Knock, Kordyban Lapeer Manderson, Marrian, Maunder, McKague Navickas, Noggle Pegley, Pibworth, Pinkman, Plumpton, Purves, Reckmann, Rosecrans Savory, Schanbeck, Schittkowski, Sibrell, Spetnagel, Storier, Suckling VonAschwege Wells-Rock-Island, Wojtyna NEW REGIONAL MAILING LISTS CANADA BRITISHHOMECHILDREN (British orphans to Canada 1880-1930) CAN-ONT-NORTHUMBERLAND-MURRY QUEBEC-RESEARCH GERMANY NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN U.S.A. NCROWAN -- within current Rowan County boundaries OH-MIAMI-CO * * * * * 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 India WorldGenWeb page, go to CANADA nbcampob -- Campobello, New Brunswick INDIA indwgw -- India WorldGenWeb U.S.A. kysccdar -- Simpson County Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution (Kentucky) ohjcha -- Jefferson County Historical Association (Ohio) vtwags -- Welsh-American Genealogical Society (Vermont) * * * SPOTLIGHT ON: THE MAINE OLD CEMETERY ASSOCIATION (MOCA) MOCA's primary purpose is to locate old cemeteries, encourage their care and preservation, and aid in the preservation of historic information. By caring for old cemeteries, MOCA encourages individuals, towns, historical, civic, religious and other groups to care for graveyards in their communities. MOCA's longest ongoing project is the Maine Inscription Project (MIP), which started more than 30 years ago. MOCA has documented the burials in thousands of old cemeteries throughout the State of Maine. The approximately 750,000 records published to date are in three series of books that are available at the Maine State Library in Augusta. The work continues. Visit the MOCA Web site for more information **PAID ADVERTISEMENT** Plan the Perfect Family Reunion with FAMILY REUNION ORGANIZER! Also great for holiday gatherings and parties. Never forget important assignments, arrangements, and preparation with the Family Reunion Organizer. This software enables you to Make and Track Assignments, Create a Web Page, make a Family Address Book, Create a Budget, Track Expenses, Generate Dozens of Printouts, and much more! In addition, great ideas for activities and tips for successful reunions are included. Cindy Hofmeister, our in-house genealogist and product specialist, tested this software and has thoroughly loved it. In fact, at the last minute we changed our special for this week because she was so jazzed about the capabilities of this software! Normally $29.95, on special for only $26.95 until March 8th. To order visit or call Family Storehouse at 1-800-725-5013. With every purchase RootsWeb gets a 10% donation. **END PAID ADVERTISEMENT** GENCONNECT. RootsWeb hosts many surname GenConnect boards that are in need of people to maintain them. o For a complete list of adoptable GenConnect surname boards o For the form to request to adopt a GenConnect surname board (the same form is used for surname mailing list requests) Have you found a genealogical treasure, such as a photo album or an old Bible containing a completed family record page, that you would like to see reunited with its family? If so, in addition to submitting a notice for publication in the "Somebody's Links" section of MISSING LINKS or in the SOMEBODY'S LINKS NEWSLETTER (to subscribe, send e-mail that says only SUBSCRIBE to: , you can read and post notices to the GenConnect SOMEBODY'S LINKS board: * * * * * USGENWEB ARCHIVES -- THE ARCHIVES NEWSLETTER contains the current USGenWeb Archives submissions from the last week. February 28, 2000 issue USGW-ARCHIVES-ANNOUNCE-L is a read-only mailing list for weekly announcements of new updates and submissions to the USGenWeb Archives. To subscribe, send e-mail that says only SUBSCRIBE in the body of the message to this address: * * * * * LETTERS TO THE EDITORS may be posted to the GenConnect board at http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/RWR-LettersToTheEditor or e-mailed to RWR-Editors@rootsweb.com. * * * Regarding the search for WORMWOODs and the comment "I wouldn't use the "find in page" feature for fear I would miss something with a different spelling" [RWR 3:8], the wonderful thing about such browser "find in page" programs is that you can hunt for part of a name as well as an entire name. For example, I am always hunting for HEISINGER ancestors in Missouri and California. The name has been spelled HYSINGER, HISSINGER, HISINGER, et cetera, even HEIZINGER once. So when I find a database that looks promising, I hunt with the search parameter SINGER and pull up everything with that ending. Of course I do also get the SINGERS, the HASSINGERS and the "Martha was a SINGER with the band" type of stuff, but I can easily sort that out. For MEACUM, which I often find in a dozen different spellings, I search first with MEA to bring up MEACHAM, MEACOM, et cetera, then with MEC to get MECUM, MECOM, and the rest. With a name like WORMWOOD, I'd hit WORM, WERN, and WURM to scoop up all the goodies! Using the search program like a filter will bring up lots of interesting things. My only problem is that I have to find some names that are also words. BROWN is one and ELLIS is another (I get ELLIS Island a lot of the time) but the worst offenders are the SAMPLE family and (horrors) the MERGES family! Arrrrgh! If I ever discover that I'm descended from a Silas GEDCOM married to a Malindy FILES, I'm quitting! :) Sylvia Stevens * * * Enclosed are my yearly dues [voluntary contribution], and a bargain they are. In the past three months I have (with RootsWeb's help) turned up three cousins in Australia and acquired approximately 800 more names. They run from a 1405 governor of the island of Guernsey and kill a line I've been searching for 40 years with practically no results until now. Daniel P. Kerr P.S. It just occurred to me -- 850 names at $24.00 amounts to $.03 a name. * * * I just read the most recent ROOTSWEB REVIEW [Vol. 3, No. 8] and . . . I pretty much agree with Mary Hitchcock. . . I am very thankful and grateful for ANY leads I can obtain in tracing my families. The Internet has been wonderful. There are lots of people who will respond to a query and send information and leads just as a wonderful gentleman did [a few] days ago - sending me a marriage record for a Matilda HURST that might or might not be mine. It was, and I probably never would have found her without his help. If he had to go through the work to document her as mine before venturing a lead, he probably wouldn't have (and didn't have the information I already had that would have helped him to do that). The point is that I don't expect someone else to do my work for me -- I am thrilled with whatever leads they are willing to share. Sometimes they pan out, sometimes they don't, but I understand (I am a registrar for a local chapter of DAR) that everyone is responsible for seeking out their own documentation and verification of fact. That said, I really don't understand why people object to others sharing whatever they have or want to share. No one is forcing them to accept another person's work as fact or gospel; in fact, it is incumbent upon them to document it themselves to be sure. So why all the pettiness and snobbery? If you want something [to remain] "private," don't post it in a public manner. Facts about people who have passed on are public information -- you can't copyright someone's birth and death dates -- or "own" it. Mart Hurst * * * I can well identify with others who have spent years researching and going over their documentation several times before publishing their work. It is frustrating to have people e-mail you citing sources that are highly suspect and never subject to verification -- sheets that others have filled out to join organizations, that now have become so-called official records. The wildest incident was a person identifying herself as a professional genealogist, who took me to task on the middle name and spelling of an individual in my book. It was my pleasure to point out to her that the person was my own father, with whom I had lived from my birth until his death, and I certainly would know his correct middle name and spelling. So I say to others, cheer up! Put your work out there. If anyone wants to challenge, simply tell them that you want to see their documentation, and save your blood pressure against those who want to debate. I enjoy sharing with individuals who have a legitimate desire to trace their family. Just don't let others spoil it. * * * * * HUMOR. Thanks to Andrew Billinghurst from down under, who forwarded these allegedly "Actual Olympics Questions Sent to the Department of Immigration." o Can I wear high heels in Australia? (U.K.) o Are there killer bees in Australia? (Germany) o Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia? (U.S.A.) o I hear that all Australian women are beautiful. Is that true? If so, can you send me pictures of the available ones? (Italy) o I want to walk from Perth to Sydney. Can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden) o Which direction is north in Australia? (U.S.A.) o My client wants to take a steel pooper-scooper into Australia. Will you let her in? (South Africa) o Where can I learn underwater welding in Australia? (Portugal) o Do the camels in Australia have one hump or two? (U.K.) o Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (U.S.A.) * * * * * THE SELF FAMILY NEWSLETTER, founded in 1982 by SELF/SELPH family descendants, is a non-profit quarterly publication consisting of 110+ pages per volume/year of census material, deeds, wills, birth, death, marriage records, photographs, member queries, family group sheets and more. We boast of 12 excellent volunteer editors specializing in different areas/states of our Self family. Self Family Newsletter also promotes a yearly "Gathering" where researchers can meet, fellowship, and exchange data. We also maintain a Web site as a supplement to our newsletter at which includes an index to our articles and contains the queries of past two years. For more information e-mail * * * * * THE TAX MAN COMETH: LAND & PROPERTY IN COLONIAL FAUQUIER COUNTY, VIRGINIA - TAX LISTS FROM THE FAUQUIER COUNTY COURT CLERK'S LOOSE PAPERS 1759-1782, by Joan W. Peters, CGRS; 222 pp., Introduction, every-name Indices, ISBN: 1-58549-408-9, $33.00, T 2206, Willow Bend Books 1-800-876-6103. This important new book on recently discovered colonial tax lists for Fauquier County, Virginia makes available to genealogists and family historians for the first time the names of the earliest Fauquier County, Virginia tax payers. Mrs. Peters, a local historian, author, genealogist, and archivist, has painstakingly transcribed these previously inaccessible colonial tax lists in order to make them extensively available to historians, family researchers, and professional genealogists. The tax lists were unearthed during an inventory of bundled records in the Clerk's Loose Papers, being readied for a records preservation grant from the Library of Virginia. These lists will completely rewrite the early history of the county's colonial tax payers. * * * * * 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.com, Inc., RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Genealogy News, Vol. 3, No. 9, 1 March 2000. RootsWeb: BACK ISSUES OF ROOTSWEB REVIEW may be read online or downloaded from TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE from ROOTSWEB REVIEW and MISSING LINKS, send e-mail with only SUBSCRIBE (or UNSUBSCRIBE) in the message area to: .