Cousins, Listmembers -
1) The person referenced in the post I forwarded to the list the other
evening has apologized and closed his site. The data belonging to USGENWEB
is still available at USGENWEB sites and the USGENWEB archives at RootsWeb.
Other data is available at original sites linked from Gresinet and Cyndi's,
all of which are linked at
http://www2.netdoor.com/~cch
2) Further discussion of the problems of the past weekend is not appropriate
on these genealogy lists. Copyright-L is the list for that sort of discussion.
3) One of the features of RootsWeb which some of you may not have tried is
the Roots Surname List. This month, for the first time, I have entered a
few of the surnames I am researching - and have already had responses!!!!
Overview of the Roots Surname List (RSL)
Updated 29 January 1997
Contents
What is the RSL?
How to Search the RSL
How to Submit Data for Inclusion in the RSL
If you prefer to learn about things by doing instead of simply reading about
them, and if you have access to the web, you might want to mosey over to
http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/Genea/rsl and poke around...
I. WHAT IS THE RSL AND HOW IS IT USED?
The Roots Surname List (RSL) is a list or registry of surnames (at the time
I write this, there are almost 200,000 surnames that have been submitted by
over 20,000 net.genealogists, with additional names arriving at the rate of
over 600 a day). Associated with each surname are dates and locations, and
information about how to contact the person who submitted the surname. If
you are researching a family with the same surname, in the same area and
similar timeframe, then you might find it useful to contact the person who
submitted the surname to share and compare notes. Do be realistic: if you're
researching Woodbury in Alabama in the 1800s, a person with info on the
Woodbury family of England in the 1600s isn't likely to be of much help. I
mention this because some submitters have withdrawn their data from the RSL
due to the flood of e-mail they're received, much of it as off target as the
example I just gave.
What does it cost? There is no charge to participate, although RootsWeb, the
major sponsor of this effort, does accept voluntary contributions. If you
find the RSL useful and would like to support it financially, please please
visit
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html
for information. (Really, we do need and appreciate your support! It's
amazing how this beast is eating computer cycles and bandwidth.)
If you'd like to have your surnames included in the RSL, there is a
submission form on the web at
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/searches/rslform.html
Alternatively, data may be submitted by e-mail. Directions on how to do
so are included in Section III.
If you see a surname listed that interests you, especially if there is a
good match on dates and locations, contact the person who submitted the
surname. If you're accessing the RSL via the interactive search on the web,
all you need to do to learn how to contact the submitter is to select their
nametag, listed at the end of each surname entry. Otherwise, you'll need to
order the individual address from the mailserver at
genealogy.org, as
described in Section II. All the addresses listed are fairly current (verified
within the last twelve months) and the best we currently have on file. There's
no need to contact us about a bad address: if the submitter doesn't resurface
with a valid address before the annual verification process, their data will
be dropped from the list.
Due to the amount of data scrubbing involved, the web-searchable RSL is
currently only updated once a month, on the first Sunday of the month.
(We're exploring ways to update it more frequently without going nuts.
Please be patient!) Starting the next day, the new surnames are posted to
rsl-update (an Internet genealogy mailing list -- to subscribe, just send
the message "subscribe" (without the quotation marks) to
rsl-update-request(a)rootsweb.com) and to soc.genealogy.surnames (the
USENET genealogy newsgroup devoted to surnames) and alt.genealogy (a general
purpose genealogy newsgroup). The first day, the new A surnames are
posted, the second day the new B surnames, etc. (The full RSL is simply too
large to be posted in such a manner.) Included in the posted update is contact
information for the submitters of the new and updated info. The databases
accessible via e-mail are typically updated a few days later.
Section II describes how to check the RSL for your surnames of interest.
Section III explains how to submit your data for inclusion.
II. HOW TO SEARCH THE RSL
A. Via the World Wide Web
If you have access to the World Wide Web via Mosaic, NetScape, lynx,
or most other web browsers, visit the URL:
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/searches/
and you can query the RSL for individual surnames, click on the
submitter's nametag to be shown the submitter's contact information, etc.
B. Via e-mail
There are now two mailservers that provide RSL lookups via e-mail.
They each employ a different syntax, so be sure, whichever you choose, that
you use the commands specific to it. One mailserver was created by Michael
Cooley of
genealogy.org. To use it, send e-mail to server(a)genealogy.org.
Commands go in the subject line, one per message. To check for the surname
Keithley in the RSL, use the subject line
find rsl Keithley
To get the contact information for submitter karen, use the subject line
find rsl-addr karen
The second mailserver was created by Jeff Trembath. His program will
search for multiple names and return the contact info all in a single pass.
Send mail to rsl(a)genealogy.mksi.com with each surname on a separate line
in the message. For more detailed information, send mail to
rsl-info(a)genealogy.mksi.com. Or check out his RSL Search Homepage at
http://gen.roc.wayne.edu/fsl.html.
III. HOW TO SUBMIT DATA FOR INCLUSION IN THE RSL
There are two ways to do this. One is simply to use the form on the
web at
http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/searches/rslform.html
It will guide you through the process and get the niggling details
right, and you can skip the remainder of this document. Or you can do it the
old-fashioned way, via e-mail. In which case, read on...
Please read this section carefully before submitting data. I receive a
gazillion messages each month having to do with the RSL, and I and
the other folk who prepare the data for inclusion in the RSL sometimes get
cranky
about the time wasted by obviously improperly formatted or otherwise
inappropriate submissions. (You'll do fine as long as your submission looks
a lot like the examples below.) And if the presentation below is too
confusing, the one in the family.faq may suit better.
BASIC GUIDELINES
Send new entries and contact information to us at one of the addresses
listed at the end of this note. New data received in time will be
included in the next release of the RSL, typically on the first Sunday of the
month. If it's late, it will be included in the release the following
month. See below for format information. Please follow these guidelines:
* Send ordinary text files. Please do not compress, zip, uuencode, or
MIME encode your file. (The best way to avoid accidentally doing these
awful things is to cut and paste your information into your mail
message, rather than attaching it.)
* Be sure to submit "how to reach you" information as well as surnames.
At the very least, that means your name and your e-mail address.
* Do not submit more than 100 surnames. (You can submit another 100 next
month, if you want to.)
* Do not put your surnames in CAPS.
* And no Tiny Tafels. They don't conform to the RSL format, and they
don't really contain the right information for the RSL. If you don't
know what a Tiny Tafel is, you're in little danger of sending me one
accidentally. Currently, I'm unaware of any site that is collecting
Tiny Tafels. The two sites I used to list here are no longer doing so.
FORMATTING YOUR "HOW TO REACH YOU" INFORMATION
If you are submitting data for the first time, we need one or two lines of
address information indicating how you can be contacted. The format is
fairly flexible, but should include a short nametag (less than eight
characters, all lower case) and at the very least your name and e-mail
address. Most submitters also include their postal addresses, but that's not
required. If the selected nametag has already been taken, we'll conjure up a
new one. Feel free to suggest alternate nametags when you send in your data.
The lines for karen (me) are:
karen Karen Isaacson, karen(a)rand.org, karen(a)rootsweb.com
P.O. Box 6831, Pine Mountain Club, CA 93222
FORMATTING YOUR SURNAME INFORMATION
In the same message as the "How to Reach You" information, include
one line of data for each surname you are submitting. What should the surname
entries look like? Each entry should be on one line of no more than 80
characters in length, and should consist of five parts. Entries that don't
contain at
least one date and location will not be added to the database. The five
parts are:
1. The name of the family, in mixed case (Smith not SMITH or smith).
2. The earliest date for which you have information about the family. (For
instance, the birthdate of the founder of the family, or the year he or
she first showed up in the records.)
3. The most recent date for which you have information about the family.
(When the last person with that surname died or skipped town, for
instance. Use "now" if you know people of this surname that are still
around -- yourself, for example. It's up to you whether a woman is
considered under her maiden surname, married surname, or both.)
4. The migration of the family. For instance, if my ancestors started out
in Virginia, moved to Kentucky, then on to Missouri, this would be
VA>KY>MO,USA. If I still have room (remember, all fields should fit on
one line -- the long Keithley entry in the example below is pushing the
limit), then I add some county information to further distinguish the
family: OrangeCo,VA>KY>GentryCo,MO,USA. There is a list of most of the
abbreviations that are in use. It is in a file called family.abbrev and
perhaps the easiest way to retrieve it via e-mail ist to send a
message to server(a)genealogy.org with a subject line that reads
(without the quotation marks) "send RSL/abbrev". Or just spell out
the location in your submission, and the person who does the final data
entry will put in the proper abbreviation, if any.
5. The nametag of the submitter. This is so you can be found in the
address list. See discussion above for how to select one.
The Roots Surname Index is rather oddly computerized. There aren't
any firm restrictions on the presentation of the data, but do try to use
something like the format suggested above and illustrated below.
Here are a few sample entries (my own, funny thing):
Bell 1780 1940 OrangeCo,VA>KY>GentryCo,MO,USA karen
Carr - see Kerr (karen)
Keithley c1750 1823DEU>PA?>MD>RowanCo,NC>FloydCo,IN,USA karen
Keithley c1750 1923 DEU>PA?>RowanCo,NC>KY>StCharlesCo,MO,USA karen
Kerr 1760 now HuntingdonCo,PA>VenangoCo,PA>IA,USA karen
Kicheli - see Keithley (karen)
WHEN TO SUBMIT
Try to get your additions or modifications in by the Thursday before the
first Sunday of each month, when the monthly update is published. If you
miss a deadline, not to worry: your surnames will have arrived in
time for the next deadline and will be included in the next month's list.
WHAT HAPPENS THEN?
Shortly after a new submission is received, a form letter acknowledgement is
sent. The new information will be included in the next monthly update.
Shortly after the update has been released, you'll receive a form letter
showing all the data we currently have on file for you. Your
surname(s) will continue to be listed in the full RSL (the one on the
mailservers
and web) for a year. At that time, you'll receive a second form letter checking
whether you can still be reached, and whether your data is still
current. A positive response results in another year in the RSL, after which you
receive another form letter, etc.
WHERE TO SUBMIT
Where do you sent your data so it can be included in the RSL?
Internet: rsl(a)rootsweb.com <- preferred
karen(a)rootsweb.com
Postal: Karen Isaacson <- not preferred
P.O. Box 6831
Pine Mountain Club, CA 93222
Carol Carwile Head <cch(a)netdoor.com>
http://www2.netdoor.com/~cch
Listowner for the GEN-MAT lists (new/used genealogical materials),
IMMI-GRAND (immigrant grandparents research), RAN-CLAY (east-central Alabama
counties), ALBLOUNT (Blount county, AL), ALTUSCAL (Tuscaloosa county, AL),
and Agnew, Bailey, Barker, Bell, Bowen, Bozeman, Cannon, Carwile, Cloud,
Creel, Crowder, Couts, DeVaughn, Ferguson, Forde, Gannon, Garrett, Grogan,
Head, Humphreys, Jordan, King, Knotts, Lipscomb, Lynch, Page, Poole,
Pursley, Roland, Sapp and Thompson surname lists, now at RootsWeb.