Brian Leverich at RootsWeb has announced that their new search engine is now online. To search any of the mail list archives that are housed at RootsWeb, go to: http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl and enter the name of the Mail List you wish to search [ex. BLANCHARD-L] and Submit. To search the USGenWeb Archives, go to: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ussearch.htm I will prepare a summary of search procedures for B-L and will update that section of the Greetings/Guidelines message. In the meantime, here are some tips from the GeorgiaGenWeb Archives page that will be a good starting point. Thanks to Carla Cegielski cegielski@ncweb.com for offering this on the listowner-L Mail List. Search Tips: Searches are not case sensitive Valid operators are: AND OR ANDNOT Right truncation is supported using the asterisk * as a wildcard Search for phrases by enclosing search terms in quotation marks Use parentheses to remove ambiguity from search expressions. Otherwise, operators execute from left to right. Examples: John AND Ruffin - retrieves documents in which the words John and Ruffin <both> appear somewhere in the document. "John Ruffin" - (with quotes) retrieves occurrences where the word John appears <next> to the word Ruffin. John Ruffin - (without quotes) finds documents where <either> the word John <or> the word Ruffin appears. will OR probate - returns documents containing <either> word. Midway ANDNOT Appling - retrieves documents that contain the word Midway but <not> the word Appling. Richards* - finds all words <beginning> with Richards, including Richards, Richardsen, Richardson, etc. Ruffin AND (deed* OR indenture*) Use parentheses to ensure results. This search expression retrieves documents containing Ruffin <and> either deed, deeds, indenture, or indentures. Without the parentheses, it will find documents containing Ruffin and deed or deeds <OR> documents that contain the words indenture or indentures whether they contain the search term Ruffin or not. (The AND operator is executed <first>, illustrating the left-to-right execution; followed by the OR operator) . These examples apply mostly to GenWeb Archives searches but are equally applicable to the Mail List Archives. I will prepare a summary of search expressions that can be used to retrieve Mail or Digest mode messages and that can be used in connection with our Index-Line Database. _ _ _ _ _ _ Tomorrow, I plan to attend the Spring Meeting of the Genealogical Society of Vermont in the hope of learning more about the elusive Abner BLANCHARD and his <son?> Asahel. Fletch