) ( ) 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. On posting messages 3. Trivia from the American Civil War 4. Let's remember our cousins who can't get out 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 is our sister site, the Bower Cottage, which houses most of our projects including an online GEDCOM fed by quite a few cousins from our research groups. Find the Cottage is at <http://bowercommunity.com/cottage>. ON POSTING MESSAGES With everyone returning to the family after their summer haitus, it's important to remind our newbies and novices of some query-posting pointers: 1.) Don't type your message all in capital letters. It is very difficult to read a message so-styled, and in netiquette it's considered yelling. 2.) Give your message a subject line proper to the material in your message. Subject lines are your introduction lines and capture a reader's attention. Make yours count! If you're not sure of how to create a subject line watch what everyone else is saying in theirs, and do the same. Or, you can contact me with your material and I'll give you a couple ideas <ladyaudris@earthlink.net>. 3.) When posting queries, please give as much information on your lines as possible to help us identify your ancestors. Names, dates, and places are critically important! Give as much of that information as you can. Also, please proofread your query before posting it to clean up grammatical and punctuation errors that often make it difficult to understand what you're saying. 4.) **EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY IMPORTANT:** Please... DO NOT post information about living people in your messages. This is for your protection and that of your loved ones. Identity thieves are always happy to assume an identity if they can get enough of the right information on your family, and we genealogists are their favorite targets! Keep in mind, most credit card companies have your mother's maiden name as your password. Protect yourself and don't identify her! In addition, we don't research the living, so we really don't need to see their information anyway. 5.) How long has it been since you last posted? Remember, new cousins are finding us everyday. You should try to post at least once a month. 6.) Have you posted and not gotten a response? Try re-wording your last post and add more information. Perhaps nobody can identify your lines from the information you've already given. I might not descend from your great grandmother directly, but from one of her siblings, and I also might not know that person's parents. Only your posting those siblings will help me identify and tie into you. 7.) Another important point... Inline Cousin #1: "I'm a lurker, simply monitoring the list looking for my ancestor, Quasi Doe. Nobody's posted anything about my lines and I need to trim the number of messages I'm receiving, so I'll unsubscribe this one." Inline Cousin #2: "I'm brand new, scared to death to post. I want to find someone who's related to Quasi Doe. How do I do it? Where do I send to? I've been sitting here for several months now (lurking) and I still haven't seen anybody researching my line." ...And so it goes. A lost opportunity for two inline-cousins because neither one posted and now, one is gone from the list. Don't let this happen to you. TRIVIA FROM THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR I found this little goodie at <http://www.genealogybulletin.com/archives/HTML/etc70.html> while surfing the Web earlier this week. I thought you all might be interested in reading it. According to a tidbit from genealogical society bulletins, 78 percent of the Union Army in the Civil War was comprised of lads 15 to 18 years old. Data gleaned from government records reveals figures that may surprise you. Here are the statistics from the total enlistment of Northern soldiers during the Civil War: Age Number of Personnel 10 ............ 25 11 ............ 34 12 ............225 13 ............380 14 ...........1602 15 ........104,987 (3.5%) 16 ........231,051 (8.0%) 17 ........884,981 (28.0%) 18 ......1,158,434 (38.5%) 19-22 .....617,511 (20.5%) 22-44 ......52,696 45+ .....Not given How old was your ancestor when he served in the Civil War? Keep his age in mind as you see portrayals or read battle accounts. How would your 17-year-old son fare? LET'S REMEMBER OUR COUSINS WHO CAN'T GET OUT With the start of school, we begin to settle back into our homes. For those of you still lucky enough to be able to continue researching outside the home, please remember we have cousins who are shut-ins and watch for those morsels of data posted to the list. If, during your searches at libraries, archives, historical societies, and cemeteries you should come across our surnames, please... won't you extract the data to share with us here? Variant spellings are very welcome, too! With your added material they just might be able to tie-in to another cousin, and it could be YOU! :) After all, it's family ... and that's what we're all about. Thank you for allowing me to spend this time with you today. It's an interlude I truly enjoy. I wish each of you a week filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'