I thought this was a good opportunity to send along a few administrative messages and to see if we could stimulate some more activity on this list. BLANCHARD-L has been running more or less on auto-pilot lately and I have been trying to find time to give it some more personal direction. One of the things I have wanted to tell new members about and to remind 'old timers', involves the number of messages I receive from RootsWeb notifying me about list messages that have bounced from our members' mail servers. Our list is set so that after 4 bounces, the member is supposed to be automatically unsubscribed from B-L. In most cases, this happens, but for some addresses, they seem to linger on and I continuously get a report about bounced mail. I would like to suggest that when you know that your mail may pile up on your server for an extended period of time (vacation, busy, etc.), you might want to unsub from B-L and then resub when you are able to keep up with your In Box. Also, if you change your e-mail address, please unsub the old and resub the new. The list archives is always there (the recent down-time, notwithstanding) so you can recover any missed exchanges. Particularly for new members, but again as a reminder, be sure to make use of the list archives and the databases on our Web Page. You will find a tremendous amount of information there. A quick search of both of these sources will make it easier for you to prepare a query for submission to the list, knowing what has already been discussed/shared. I was trying to think of an example and Kathy Baker's post today re/ the Blanchard River in Ohio, gave me a good lead. Taking a break from other matters (Income Tax preparation, etc), I thought the idea of naming a river after an early Blanchard settler might lead to an interesting story so - A few minutes in the BLANCHARD-L archives for 1997 with the keywords "Putnam and County and Ohio" produced - Date: Sat, 06 Sep 1997 07:04:14 -0600 From: Jean Ohai <jeanohai@worldnet.att.net> To: blanchard-l <blanchard-l@rootsweb.com> Here is a second installment of Blanchard references from the genealogical periodical index (PERSI) maintained by the Allen County Public Library of Fort Wayne, IN. Jean Ohai jeanohai@worldnet.att.net - - - - - Locality: U. S. , Ohio, PutnamRecord Type: School Article Title: School Students, 1901, Blanchard Twp. Periodical: Putnam Pastfinder PERSI Code: OHPM Volume: 7Number: 3 (August 1991) Locality: U. S. , Ohio, Record Type: History Article Title: Native Am. /Jean Jacques Blanchard Periodical: Ohio Cues PERSI Code: OHCU Volume: 17Number: 5 (February 1868) _____ etc. These two entries confirmed a connection between Putnam Co., Ohio and a Blanchard family and suggested that Jean Jacques might have been the early settler. A second search in the 1998 archive, with the key words " Jean and Jacques " produced - __________ Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 16:53:00 -0400 From: Tom Wilde <wildeman@pilot.infi.net> To: BLANCHARD-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <353A642C.B597B7BE@pilot.infi.net> Subject: Responses From Pat B. Curry Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pat Blanchard Curry writes: Responses to recent queries-- - - - To "nancy@YOGI.NMMI.CC.NM.US" [Nancy Siders] on 22 Mar 98 Re source of BLANCHARD name in Hancock Co., OH: It seems there was a well-educated tailor named JEAN JAQUES BLANCHARD [d 1802] who came from France to Louisiana in 1760 where he spent 2 years. In 1770 he arrived in the Hancock Co., OH area; about 1772 he married a Shawnee woman; had 12 children, 7 of whom were living at the time the US govt. was moving the Indians out of Ohio. The Shawnee name of the river meant "Tailor's River". Early surveyors in OH gave it the "Blanchard's fork of the Auglaize". [S: Spaythe's 1903 History of Hancock Co,, pp52-3 plus others which essentially provide the same data. ] *********************** Bingo! I'm hoping this is meaningful to Kathy and I'll guess that Putnam and Hancock counties are nearby and that Jean Jacques is our man! My atlas shows the Blanchard River as being east of Findlay, OH. I hope that those of you who have hesitated to play around with the archives, will jump in and explore. Once you've gained a little experience, you will find them to be very useful. Fletch