Happy New Year Listmembers:
I trust that everyone had a great Christmas season. I would like to welcome
all the new subbers to the list recently.
I am going to be running the roll call I spoke of a while back. For the new
members, a roll call is simply a request for everyone to get their queries
on the list for the best possible results.
In doing this please remember a few items and guidelines.
PLEASE DO NOT JUST HIT REPLY AND SEND THE POSTING TO ME...SEND IT TO THE
LIST.
Let's begin this roll call right now on Monday January 1st 2001 and run it
until next Sunday next night at midnight January 7th 2001.
To make your query work harder for you... keep in mind the old rules of
news reporting and include as many of the following as possible:
SUBJECT FIELD: To get the most from your query and make your query
command attention, place the SURNAME, LOCATION, YEAR in the subject
field. Remember ! ! ! ! Many subscribers belong to multiple mailing
lists;
therefore, many go through their mail looking at subject fields... only
reading
those that have descriptive subject names. Unfortunately, messages entitled
"Question", "Help", "IMPORTANT!", "My
Family", "My Line",
"My Grandfather", etc., are deleted without ever being opened.
WHO: State the names of people as completely as you can.
WHAT: Try to limit your query to one or two specific questions or bits of
information. Post other queries with additional questions rather than
load all your questions into one query. In this way, each of your questions
will stand out and get attention.
WHEN: Dates are important, if you don't know the day, month and year
try to put in a period (1790s, late 1800s etc.)
WHERE: Mention the location of events (birth, marriage, death, etc.) in
the body of the query. Include their migration path if you can.
WHY: Why are you searching for this(these) individual(s)? Describe your
connection to him/her.
HOW: How your query appears will often get subscriber's attention. Check
spelling, grammar and format.
REPETITION: Once you have an acceptable looking query, save it and
update it as necessary. Use it again bi-weekly to touch base
with new members. Also, you may use it on web sites that accepts queries.
REMEMBER: Your goal is to get information. A list server (discussion
group),
such as this, is an excellent forum for helping you get that information.
Make
your query work!
By following these recommendations, your query stands a better chance of
being read and you may make that great contact that you need.
GOOD QUERIES CONNECT...
CAUTION... You may wish to consider withholding personal data on living
descendants. Because, at the moment, once your message has been archived on
RootsWeb, neither the data within nor the message can be removed from the
archives.
ALWAYS: Be sure to thank the person(s) who answer your queries, whether or
not their answers have any usable info or not. Remember, they might not have
any info now, but just might obtain some, and be reluctant to send to an
ungrateful person.
TRY: To answer as many queries as you may be able to. In this I mean ones
that you have info for. NOT just to say "I don't know anything". Also make
certain that if your answer doesn't apply to more then a couple persons,
please send it privately and not to the group. Many of our lists are set to
reply to the group, so check the address before sending.
Debbie Jennings
debbiej(a)iquest.net
"Following the footprints through time"
Researching in IN,KY,TN,NC,PA,NJ,VT,NY,MA,MD,
VA,CAN,GER,ENG