Newsgroups: soc.roots,soc.answers,news.answers From: john@meertech.demon.co.uk (John Woodgate) Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!uknet!demon!meertech.demon.co.uk!john Subject: Soc.roots Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Organization: Meersbrook Technical Services Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Followup-To: poster Reply-To: john@meertech.demon.co.uk Summary: This monthly 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.roots newsgroup. X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.27 Lines: 315 Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 21:31:33 +0000 Message-ID: <764717493snz@meertech.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu soc.roots:32657 soc.answers:1005 news.answers:16876 Archive-name: roots-faq Last-Modified: 1994/03/06 Version: 1.0 Frequently Asked Questions For Soc.Roots John Woodgate Contributions by: Cliff Manis, Elizabeth Harris. If you have comments or additions, please contact John Woodgate, john@meertech.demon.co.uk. Changes are marked with a "|" in the left column. Many newsreaders (e.g. rn, trn) allow you to search for them with "g^". Changes this issue: None ----------------------------- Subject: Questions Discussed: General Interest: GN1. What is Soc.Roots For? GN2. Replying to a message. GN3. Basic Soc.Roots Etiquette GN4. Access to the LDS database. GN5. What about Alt.genealogy? ROOTS-L: RL1. What is ROOTS-L? RL2. How do I subscribe to ROOTS-L? RL3. How do I Unsubscribe to ROOTS-L? LISTSERV: LS1. What is LISTSERV? LS2. What is available from the LISTSERV? GENEALOG: GE1. What is GENEALOG? GE2: How Do I Request GENEALOG Files? Family Index: FI1: What is the Roots Surname List? The discussions below are organised in digest form, so you may scan ahead for the "^Subject:" string to move from one topic to the next, and you can search for "^Subject: GN5" to jump to a particular question. The caret "^" before subject means to restrict your search to lines starting with. See the instructions for your news reader to see if it supports this search mode. ----------------------------- Subject: GN1. What is Soc.Roots For? The purpose of this newsgroup is: (a) To provide readers with a way to communicate and request information about Genealogy (Family History). (b) To provide a forum for the discussion of topics related to Genealogy. These should not be restricted to any one country or culture. (c) To provide a means of keeping informed of activities taking place within the Genealogical community. (d) To help those people who wish to learn how to search for information concerning their own family history. All who have access to the Usenet Soc.Roots newsgroup 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. Remember, what you post, will be seen exactly as you post it. Advertising or selling of a product or service is not in general regarded as acceptable. The announcement of a product or service and its cost is acceptable. ----------------------------- Subject: GN2. Replying to a message. Feel free to answer questions or provide clarification or comments in response to any posting you see on Soc.Roots. However, please "REPLY" to the posting ONLY if you think your comments will be of interest to other readers and you wish your answer sent to the entire newsgroup. If you want to start a personal correspondence with the poster of a message, look in the header of the note and find the "FROM:" or "REPLY TO:" field where you will find that person's email address. You can then send your note directly to that person. ----------------------------- Subject: GN3. Basic Soc.Roots Etiquette (1) Read carefully what you receive to make sure that you understand the message. (2) Read carefully what you send, to make sure that your message will not be misunderstood. (3) If you are using humour or sarcasm, make sure to clearly label it as such. Humour is usually indicated by a smiley e.g. :) or (grin). (4) Remember that the absence of visual clues normally associated with face to face communication provides an ideal environment for being misunderstood. (5) Know your audience. Make sure that the person or list of people you are sending your message to are right ones to be communicating with. (6) Be tolerant of newcomers. None of us were born knowing all. (7) Avoid cluttering your message with excessive emphasis (such as stars, exclamation marks "!", etc). It can make the message hard to follow. (8) If you are responding to a message, either include the relevant part of the original message, or make sure you unambiguously refer to the original contents. It is very common for people to read your reply before they read the original message. (9) Always include a descriptive subject line in your message. Use the Subject: line to get attention and make sure it describes the main point of your message. Avoid very long subjects as some newsreaders only display the first 30 characters or so. If you are seeking information about a family, include the surname in UPPERCASE in the Subject: line. Remember that with over 500 messages per week, many people use the subject line to decide if they should read your message or not. "Need help" or "Genealogy" are not good subject lines. Likewise, not everybody who reads this newsgroup lives in the USA. Please give an indication of the country or countries you are interested in. (10) Keep messages to only one subject. Second subjects within a single message are often missed. (11) Be specific, especially when asking questions. If you ask about a person, identify when and where the person might have lived. If you ask about software, please identify what computer and operating system you use. (12) Always put your name in the text of the message, and also your best email address for a reply. I suggest you also put your postal address in the message as well so anyone can reply to you, even if they cannot reply electronically to you. (13) Many readers have very limited, and in some cases expensive electronic mail facilities. Be particularly careful not to cause unnecessary traffic, or to send unnecessary long messages. (14) Remember that not all readers have English as their native language, so make allowance for possible misunderstandings and unintended discourtesies. (15) Please keep your messages shorter than 10,000 bytes, about 3 or 4 pages of text. (16) Please DO NOT include a list of the surnames you are researching in your signature file, because when that message is stored in ROOTS-L and somebody is searching for your surname - they only need to find it once, and hopefully it will have your address with it as well. If they are searching, and get too many hits, then they may not request all the message numbers and therefor may miss seeing your message. (17) Please DO NOT send "test messages - the system works, and if you must test it, at least send a valid message, with useful information or questions. ----------------------------- Subject: GN4. Access to the LDS database. All questions concerning the possibility of accessing the LDS database via telnet or FTP, or by any electronic means will be answered NO. The only way is by going to an LDS (Latter Day Saints) family history centre ----------------------------- Subject: GN5. What about Alt.genealogy? Alt.genealogy is a bogus newsgroup that for reasons not worth reciting refuses to go away. Soc.roots gets about a hundred posts a day. Alt.genealogy gets a few each week. It has been suggested that people do not use the group alt.genealogy on USENET. ----------------------------- Subject: RL1. What is ROOTS-L? ROOTS-L is a discussion list where those who have an interest in Genealogy may communicate via Email messages in hopes of finding more family history information. This discussion list is gatewayed to the Usenet newsgroup Soc.Roots, the intention being that all messages sent directly to ROOTS-L also appears in Soc.Roots, and vice versa. Subscribers to ROOTS-L, and readers of Soc.Roots form what is in effect a single electronic community, though they have somewhat different ways of sending and receiving information. ----------------------------- Subject: RL2. How do I subscribe to ROOTS-L? You may subscribe to the ROOTS-L mailing list by sending an email message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu with the following one line as the only text of the message: SUBSCRIBE ROOTS-L first last where "first last" is your first and last name. Do NOT include any other text such as a sig file. The LISTSERV will attempt to read it as a series of commands. ----------------------------- Subject: RL3. How do I Unsubscribe to ROOTS-L? You may leave the ROOTS-L mailing list at any time by sending either of the following messages to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu: SIGNOFF ROOTS-L or UNSUB ROOTS-L No name is needed. In fact it will not work if you put your name. ----------------------------- Subject: LS1. What is LISTSERV? LISTSERV is the computer which controls the ROOTS-L mailing list. It also holds many files to do with Genealogy. Please try to learn the difference. Send a message to ROOTS-L if you want to communicate with humans. Send it to LISTSERV if you want to talk to a computer. ----------------------------- Subject: LS2. What is available from the LISTSERV? Probably the most important thing you can do would be to request a listing of the FAQ index from LISTSERV. These cover virtually every topic you can think of, and in some detail. So before you start to ask questions, send the following message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu: GET FAQ 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. ----------------------------- Subject: GE1. What is GENEALOG? GENEALOG is an area on the LISTSERV 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.Roots telling you about a new file. You can request a listing of the files and their descriptions by simply sending the following message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu: /FILES ROOTS-L It will normally take about 10 minutes for the LISTSERV computer to reply, sending you a message with the entire list of files. ----------------------------- Subject: GE2: How Do I Request GENEALOG Files? To request a file from GENEALOG, just send the following message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu: 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@vm1.nodak.edu: GET GENEALOG helpfile ----------------------------- Subject: FI1: 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. To obtain a copy of the entire list directly from the LISTSERV, send the following message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu: GET FAMILY INDEX The LISTSERV will return by e-mail, the names of the files containing the full 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. -- Meersbrook Technical Services, Email: john@meertech.demon.co.uk 35 Argyle Road, Phone: (0742) 552630 Meersbrook, Sheffield, Mobile: 0831 578216 S.Yorks. S8 9HG Fax: (0742) 552630