Hello everyone, Here are some things to know and remember when participating in the MOBILE BAY AREA ROOTS [AL-MOBILEBAY] mailing list. * If your email software quotes the original message in your reply (which most do), PLEASE DELETE all text from the original message that is not germane to your response. Generally speaking, you do not need to quote an entire message to show what you are responding to. (This is VERY IMPORTANT and is not done often enough by listmembers.) * If you subscribe to the digest mode of the list, remember to change the subject line to reflect the subject of your reply. * If you are responding to a particular thread (a series of messages on the same subject) and the discussion starts to veer away from the original topic -- it's a good idea to change the subject line to reflect the new topic(s). Many people who subscribe to many lists (and therefore have to deal with a huge amount of email) typically just scan the subject lines and use only that information in their decision to read or not to read your message. * This list is set up so that the "default" setting for replies is "reply to list." This means that if you simply hit the reply button to respond to an email, it will be addressed to the list. If you want a message to go JUST to a certain person, you must put that person's email address in the TO: field and delete the list's email address. * All messages sent to the list (including "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests sent to the "-request" address) MUST be in PLAIN TEXT ONLY. Otherwise the Rootsweb mail server will spit them right back to you. I must say that I am VERY pleased with the amount of activity that this list is experiencing. We currently have 262 subscribers (mail and digest modes combined). If you haven't already, I encourage you to post your queries about specific ancestors that you are chasing and/or to post your surnames and counties (at least once) so that the message can be archived. The counties that are covered by this list are... ALABAMA - Baldwin, Clarke, Escambia, Mobile, Monroe and Washington FLORIDA - Escambia MISSISSIPPI - George, Greene and Jackson I also wish to commend you all on how pleasant, cooperative and helpful you have been in your responses to others' messages. A lot of family info has gone through here in the last couple weeks and I've seen many people making great connections. New subscribers should check out the archive of the list to see if messages have already come through that may be of interest to you. To visit the list archives, you need to point your web browser to http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl You will then need to enter the name of the list which is AL-MOBILEBAY and then you can search for whatever keywords you wish (like surnames or place names). I'm not sure if the archive can be searched by those of you who have email ability, but no Internet access. I'll check that out. If you have questions or comments about anything in this message, please email me privately at <[email protected]> Keep the messages flowing and let's keep reaching out and making connections. Kudos to you all. -- Regards, Kevin Sellew in Mobile, Alabama *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* President of the Mobile (Alabama) Genealogical Society -- a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization and WebMaster for the Mobile Genealogical Society Web Site On the Web: http://www.siteone.com/clubs/mgs/ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*