
                   Frequently Asked Questions For Soc.Roots
                                John Woodgate

Contributions by: Cliff Manis, Elizabeth Harris, William Mills, Ron
     Bauerle, Brent Pellegrini.

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: The split between ROOTS-L and soc.roots is explained
     and the information on ROOTS-L expanded.

-----------------------------
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?
|    RL4. How do I get copies of past messages?
|    RL5. How do I get the messages as a digest?
|    RL6. How do I get the messages as separate messages?
|    RL7. How do I cut down the number of messages I getting
|    RL8. I keep getting 'unknown address', what can I do?

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?
     FI2: How do I add to 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 "FOLLOW-
UP" 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 <G>
     (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
     |must ask about software, please identify what computer and
     |operating system you use and check that there isn't a note about
     |that particular package or machine stored on the LISTSERV machine
     |(see below for more details).
(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 as an absolute maximum.
(16) Please DO NOT include a list of the surnames you are researching in
     |your signature file, because if the messages are archived 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 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 an Email based 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 used to be
gatewayed to the Usenet newsgroup Soc.Roots, the intention being that
all messages sent directly to ROOTS-L would also appear in Soc.Roots,
and vice versa. However, this 'linking' has been now been disabled and
the two groups are going their own ways. The choice of which to follow
depends mainly on which medium you prefer to work. Email or Usenet
newsgroup.

-----------------------------
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. 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..

-----------------------------
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: RL4. How do I get copies of past messages?
|
|If you think you have missed an important ROOTS-L message, you can get
|a copy of all the messages for a particular week. You can do this by
|sending an email message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu with the following
|line as the text of the message:
|
|GET ROOTS-L LOGyymmw
|
|Where yy is the last two digits of the year.
|      mm is the month
|       w is the week letter.
|
|For example LOG9406A will provide a copy of all the messages handled by
|the ROOTS-L list for the first week of June 1994.

-----------------------------
|Subject: RL5. How do I get the messages as a digest?
|
|If you would prefer to get the messages from ROOTS-L as a single
|digest, or 'super-message' containing all the messages for that 24-hour
|period, send an email message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu with the
|following line as the text of the message:
|
|SET ROOTS-L DIGEST
|
|Some email readers have the ability to read a digest and to break it
|down into separate messages for you to read.


-----------------------------
|Subject: RL6. How do I get the messages as separate messages?
|
|If you would prefer to get the messages from ROOTS-L as separate
|messages, send an email message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu with the
|following line as the text of the message:
|
|SET ROOTS-L MAIL

-----------------------------
|Subject: RL7. How do I cut down the number of messages I getting
|
|If you would rather not get all the messages from ROOTS-L, you can be
|sent an 'index' of just the subject lines and a reference number in
|case you do wish to retrieve the entire message. To set this up send an
|email message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu with the following line as the
|text of the message:
|
|SET ROOTS-L INDEX
|
|To get the full text of a message, send the following email message to
|LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu with the following line as the text of the
|message:
|
|GET ROOTS-L nnnnnn
|
|Where nnnnnn is the reference number of the message you want.

-----------------------------
|Subject: RL8. 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
|ROOTS-L message, the message gets returned by your name server with the
|reason 'unknown address'. There is a good chance that the vm1.nodak.edu
|machine will know the address. To send your message via this machine
|(NOT VIA ROOTS-L@vm1.nodak.edu), 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 vm1.nodak.edu, change the '@' to a '%' and add
|the @vm1.nodak.edu to the end:
|
|    user_name%unknown.address.net@vm1.nodak.edu
|
|This means that you want to use the nameserver of vm1.nodak.edu instead
|of your local nameserver.

-----------------------------
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. Getting
|this round the wrong makes you liable to feel 'a bit silly'.

-----------------------------
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. 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@vm1.nodak.edu:

GET ROOTS-L WELCOME
GET ROOTS-L WELCOME1
GET ROOTS-L WELCOME2

-----------------------------
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

One file of particular interest to new readers is the file SRCHFILE
which describes who to search the ROOTS-L Database for a given surname.
To request a copy of the file, just send the following message to
LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu:

GET GENEALOG SRCHFILE

-----------------------------
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 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.

-----------------------------
Subject: FI2: How do I add to the Roots Surname List?

If you want to add the surnames you are researching to the Roots Surname
List, send the following message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu:

GET FAMILY README

and follow the instructions.
-- 
Meersbrook Technical Services,               Email: john@meertech.demon.co.uk
35 Argyle Road,                              Phone: (0742) 552630
Meersbrook, Sheffield,                       Mobile: 0831 709359
S.Yorks. S8 9HG                              Fax: (0742) 552630
