A few lurkers have spoken up, and that is very gratifying! As you know,
I adopted these lists as a variant of Cowan/Colquhoun -- Cowan is my
birth
surname. I have found few cases where Cahoon/Calhoon/Calhoun/Colquhoun
ARE variants of Cowan/Cowen/Cowin, or vice-versa. Perhaps most list
subscribers have simply not gotten far back enough in their ancestral
research.
My history with these lists is a bit complicated. I adopted the Calhoun
list and boards June, 1999, Cowin and Cahoon in July, and then Calhoon
in September. I got the Colquhoun boards in July, and Cowen early in the
fall. Almost a year! I've been taking stock of my contribution. There
have been very few posts to any of the lists, besides my own, although
Cahoon-L has been perking up, and the Calhoun Query board has been
moderately active. With those exceptions, there has been virtually NO
data nor queries posted to the
GenConnect boards. I have been vigilant, and sent along every little
shred of pertinant information possible to the lists, and have been
steadily writing to prospective subscribers, telling them about our
lists
and boards, and the wonderful research system Rootsweb has created for
us. Has this work borne any fruit?
There are 21 subscribers to CAHOON-L and 4 to CAHOON-D; 11 subscribers
to CALHOON-L and 2 to CALHOON-D; 49 subscribers to CALHOUN-L and 18 to
CALHOUN-D, as of today. There are 38 subscribers to COWEN-L and 9 to
COWEN-D; 7 subscribers to COWIN-L and 2 to COWIN-D. I don't know if this
is a respectable size for the various variants, or not. Since I'm a
Cowan researcher, I have no handle on the relative rarity. What I do
know is that I have other small and even TINY lists where the
subscribers consider themselves members, and post, exchange information
and research with one another, and unselfishly contribute to list
projects.
I have been unable to get such participation from most of these lists.
I'm aware that there are other surname lists, off of Rootsweb. Perhaps
that is where the research projects are taking place? Even though I
passionately believe that Rootsweb is the best place on Earth to do
genealogy, I hope that researchers are uniting =somewhere= to get this
essential work done!
In any case, it's not that THESE lists takes so much of my time -- but I
do have 14 clusters at this point, and only 24 hours in each day! And
the
more active *some* of them get, the less time I have for the rest. It
has been my wish all along to keep this group together until a
Cahoon/Calhoun/Colquhoun researcher wanted to make it what it OUGHT to
be -- a powerful magnet drawing ALL of the surname researchers to it,
and an impressive bank of both researchers and data. Perhaps my
continuing to hold on to the clusters is holding back progress, rather
than assisting it -- especially for Cahoon, Calhoun, and Calhoon (and
Colquhoun).
So, I've decided to hand over the entire group of lists and boards, as a
group, or as individual list/GC board suites, beginning next month. I'm
willing to make a long transition, if that would help ONE researcher who
could administer the whole group, or a couple co-operating with each
other. I'm willing to train the next listowner/GCC, so if one of you
150-odd subscribers would like to take the job, speak up, and we will
arrange the transition. If I haven't heard from one of you within the
next month, I will offer it to my fellow listowners and then possibly,
back to Rootsweb, where they will be tended to by Staff. I'm willing to
continue to admin Cowen-L until I've had it a year, but I'm going to
have to cut back on all the "extras", because I have a paying job the
next couple of months which will really cut into my online time.
I wish to each of you my personal best,
Valorie