* Happy 3rd Bithday to BLANCHARD-L! * Here is a review of the brief history of our Mail List. On 20 June 1996, the BLANCHARD Family Discussion List was established at RmGate, Indiana University, under the direction of Larry Stephens. Later, it became the BLANCHARD Family Genealogy List (BFGL) and in May, 1997, we moved to RootsWeb, under the direction of Brian Leverich and Karen Isaacson, where we became BLANCHARD-L. In the past three years, we have probably had 300-400 different subscribers but one of the differences between mail lists and the more traditional family genealogy societies is that members come and go much more freely. As of today, we have 260 subscribers so we are one of the mid-size lists at RootsWeb. Because of concerns about posting personal member information on the Internet, we no longer publish a member list but your list owner/manager maintains a list with whatever information a subscriber chooses to share. I encourage you to make use of the Mail List as well as the Web Page, the GenConnect Boards and the searchable Archives which are maintained for your benefit. A few guidelines have been established for the List in order to make it more productive but they should not discourage you from posting to the List. Please share whatever you have on your BLANCHARD and variant surname lines and thanks for your continued support. Fletch