In a message dated 12/31/01 6:37:36 AM Central Standard Time, cilcia@bellsouth.net writes: > > > Maureen, > > Thanks for trying to make our lives simpler. Those of us with census > records are constantly frustrated by emails or list requests that say "John > Smith, 1880, father David." We are left to decide if John was born in > 1880, do they want the 1880 census, and just where do John and David live? > So many incomplete request go ignored, simply because the volunteers don't > know where to start looking. I do lookups for 6 states, several counties > in each state, so I get about 20 requests daily. It's great to have a list > mom that realizes that we have lives beyond genealogy, and tries to help us > out as much as possible. Thanks for all your hard work this past year, > Maureen! Happy New Year! > > Marci > > Marci Shaw Peralez All well and good. I think email works both ways, rather than ignor a request, send an email and request more precise information, Maybe that was all the person knows, or maybe they are new and don't know what to include. On another list I have been ignored a lot, but I thought it was because no volunteer was on the list at the time. Forgive me if I am wrong, but "John Smith 1880 Father David" sent to a specific state, would mean to me, person doesn't know what county and they want a lookup in state for any county for 1880, and John Smith would show up in household of the parents they were looking for, thinking that there is a master search that would give the name, county, for that year. That would show all John Smiths with father David and they could choose logical one. Works both ways, person asking for lookup erred, person doing lookup ignored request and erred also. Thanks for all the good work all the volunteers do and we do have wonderful volunteers on this list. We have some who are as "GOOD AS GOLD" as I have stated before. Without someone asking for help with their search, we would not need a list. Not all doing research are professionals, at some time or another we all get frustrated because seems like our ancestors just arrived by spaceship, stayed a while , left their mark and boarded the spaceship and disapeared. Happy New Year to All, I hope the new year brings all our brick walls down Betty