) ( ) Good Morning Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. Newbie Nuggets a. responding to a query b. I'm a newbie too, now 3. Kuzins Korner If you've been with the family for at least three weeks, you'll probably want to skip the following paragraphÂ… TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur ancestors or any of the 81+ variant spellings we research that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. If you haven't visited the homesite of this list yet, you are encouraged to do so. Our home is Bower Community, located at <http://bowercommunity.com>. There, we currently have two sites: The Bower Family Homestead [a.k.a., the Homestead] is our primary homesite and the gathering place for much of our information. It waits to join us all in welcoming you into the family at <http://bowercommunity.com/homestead>. Smaller and just opened this year, our sister site, the Bower Cottage, houses most of our projects including an online GEDCOM fed by quite a few cousins from our lists. The Cottage is still small as far as material goes, however give us time and we'll have it filled really soon. The Cottage is at <http://bowercommunity.com/cottage>. NEWBIE NUGGETS RESPONDING TO A QUERY This isn't going to be about _how_ to respond to a query. You already know how to do that. This is a 'netiquette' (net etiquette) request... Have you seen someone post a lengthy message, then someone responds to it, leaving the original message in tact? When you reply over top of a message, in effect you're responding to its entirety. However, if you will stop and clip away those parts which have no relevance to the response, you'll be doing many of your cousins a favor in two ways. 1.) Most of our international cousins (and some of our American ones, too) pay for the amount of time they're on the Web (it's because of their phone line, not the Web connection itself). Having to download a reply that's gone back to the list along with its original 2-3 page message they've already seen, is a waste of our cousins money. 2.) Our cousins who take the digest will very much appreciate clipped responses as well. Do you know what a digest looks like? It's one big message full of all the posts made on the list in the last 12 hours. Do you know what a truncated digest looks like? Picture this... you receive a regular list message, but only the headers are there. That's what happens when a digest is truncated. Our digests are sent after 20,000 bytes-worth of messages are received through the list, or 12 hours after the last message is posted... whichever comes first. In order to eek in those 20,000 bytes, sometimes the last message is cut in half or up to the headers, attached to the next digest and sent that way. Those digest cousins do not get benefit of your (or the next cousin's) message because it was truncated. ...and all this simply because someone didn't realize to <snip> a long message. Please, when you respond to a message, clip it down and leave just enough that we know what you're talking about and responding to. I'M A NEWBIE TOO, NOW Yes, you read it right, I _am_ a newbie now... a newbie to the specialized research of Native America. Will I lurk? Perhaps I might for a while on a few of the 17 Native American lists I joined yesterday. However, I want you to know... if I lurk, I also know that I won't learn as much as I will if I would ask the questions I have. And yes, for a while I'm going to sound like the newbie that I am. The same applies to you right now. But, lurkers monitor a list without participating, taking their chances on seeing their ancestors come out on the list, or getting answers to their questions. I keep in mind one thing since I'm a newbie again... all the people I'm asking questions of... were also new at one time. I also know I won't be a newbie forever as long as I continue to learn and master the techniques I'll need to know. And why am I beginning Native American research? I'm not... not really. I'm just laying a foundation for myself to open a portion of our home site for those cousins who _are_ Native American. It was listed in my plans for this coming year. And, because I asked a question my first day out, I found out there are FIVE Bower(s) on a special census that are of Choctaw or Cherokee lineage! Will I go after that information to put at the Homestead?... you bet! Newbie cousins, ask the questions! Take your chances with the family... KUZINS KORNER Cousin Diana Moritz Willis (Diwill2@aol.com) left the family on Thursday. She is having eye surgery in San Antonio, Texas on January 29th due to a hole in part of her eye. As she tells me, "The fluid of my eye will be removed, and a gas bubble will be inserted. I will have to be "face down" for ten days in order for the gas bubble to do its thing. During the day, if I am bending over looking at my feet/shoes, that will count as "face down." I'm sure Diana would appreciate all our support. Family... it's what we're all about. I really enjoyed this time with you. It was so nice. Thank you for sharing it with me. I hope your upcoming week is filled with health, fun, productivity, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'