As your knowledge of your ancestry grows, the number of surnames of your
ancestors to research grows almost exponentially. 2 parents. 4 grand
parents. 8 great-grandparents. 16 great-greats, etc. Even though the
number of ancestors grows exponentially with each generation you go
back, the number of surnames doesn't because you start getting
duplicates on common names, such as 'Smith'.
And if you subscribed to RootsWeb mail lists for each of the ancestral
surnames you discover, you'd be swamped with e-mail, most of it not
relevant to your researches.
I periodically check message boards for the surnames of interest to me,
but you can miss things that way. Many message boards are "married" to
a corresponding mail list and each message posted to the board goes to
the associated mail list. But some, such as ours, have no associated
message board. And for all the boards, the "marriage" is a one way
street. Messages sent to the mail list do not appear on the
corresponding message board. So you miss a lot of research/inquiries if
you only check message boards.
From time to time, I go to
www.rootsweb.com, look down the left side
till I find Mail Lists, and under that, select 'Surname Finder'. One
immediate benefit is that you see the names of mail lists for variant
spellings, such as 'CAMBEL:L' or 'HASSLET', that you may not ordinarily
research..
Then, I pick a list and go the the 'Search the ___ archives' choice --
where the blank represents the surname you choose. You see a list of
years for which there are messages and a box for entering a query. The
most recent year is preselected, but there are "radio buttons" for
selecting a different year if you want to. I usually run a series of
queries. One for each of the counties I know that family lived in.
Often one of each of the communities they lived in. And often one for
each of the surnames of interest that they intermarried with. Or even
for a first name if it is unusual, such as 'Tryphena' or 'Zerubabble'.
Sometimes I will leave the same query in the box and click on different
years.
Try it sometime and see if you like it..
And share with us some of your favorite research techniques.