) ( ) Good Afternoon Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and crumpets! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Who I am 2. How I operate the lists 3. List guidelines 4. CHAT: forum 5. Sunday Morning Coffee 6. The Bower Family Homestead 7. Projects we're currently working on [This will be in a 2nd message] WHO I AM You all already know who I am .... but I didn't get to introduce myself properly to you, and I'd like to do so here. My name is Colleen Pustola [2-l's and 2-e's in Colleen, please] and I'm an Army wife who has recently returned to the States after our fourth tour in Germany. I'm the mother of five with three still at home. My pseudonym, Lady Audris, comes from one of my former obsessions :) as a living historian/teacher of the medieval period. I've been researching my lines for nearly 25 years, teaching this science for 18, and guest-speaking at genealogical seminars and in schools for 13. Though I'm not Mormon, I did receive the bulk of my formal training from them so reciprocate by volunteering in their Family History Centers whenever we live near one. I've published my first book, the "Bower/Winchcomb Connection" and am working on six others including an update of the first. You now know my whole life in a nutshell! :) HOW I OPERATE THE LISTS In today's Coffee, you read "family" and "cousin[s]" all through it. That's because you have not joined an email list, but an online family. We are not "members of the list," we are cousins to each other. We may not be related by blood, but by coming together as one unit...we are a family. We respect each other and each other's abilities. Sharing and working together we'll break through these brick walls we've all been facing. Sharing and working together, we're also bound to develop a closeness to one another -- just like a family. I like that, many of the cousins like it, and I hope you do, too. I don't like dictatorial listowners! They make me nervous and afraid to post! So, I guess you could say I'm rather laid-back. Also, I can't see being stuck at a brick wall, joining a list for x-number of months, and reading one message after another day after day.....and going nowhere. I've done that too many times. Frankly, it's boring; I tune out on the list and pretty soon, drop it. I decided that when I grew up and became a listowner [after 6 years on email lists] that the list would not be "mine", but "ours" -- our homesite would not be "mine", but "ours." Why? You who are reading this have as much a vested interest in this family [this list] and our home as I do. That's why, when you read about our move from GeoCities to Crosswinds, you also read that the family took a vote on what we would do [move or stay]. I will not arbitrarily move your material away from the address you expect it to be at, nor will I ever take credit for any data you elect to house there. LIST GUIDELINES I don't push "format this way" and "post only these items". We have three goals to achieve: 1. Enjoy ourselves! 2. Find our ancestral lines and inline cousins. 3. Get as much data online as possible to accomplish the first two! We do, however, have some guidelines that we follow in order to maintain a happy medium for everyone: 1. NEVER flame [verbally attack] anyone in the family. The penalty for this is instant removal from the list. If you have a problem with one of the cousins, do not post what you think about them. That's what I'm here for. There is never a justification to say hateful words and hurt someone. Hurt feelings get nobody anywhere and can make the entire group feel uneasy and unhappy. 2. Newbies to genealogy are very special to us. We treat them with much kindness as they struggle to learn the where's and how's of not only how to research, but how to participate in a discussion list without feeling afraid, intimidated, or demeaned. 3. Criticism is always gentle and constructive. We all make mistakes [I make them all the time!], and we need to remember that maybe not everyone is having as great a day as you are. If someone makes a mistake on something, go to their rescue and show him/her how to do it, if you know how. 4. Always show compassion towards a cousin who is having trouble with something. But first, always ask if he/she would like for you to help them learn. Please remember not to write any cousin and deliberately point out how many mistakes they have made. This would be outright rude, and we're all above that. That person might be having a rough day with mistakes spilling out every time they try to do something. 5. When you post messages to the family, please always use a helpful subject line like "John BAUER d. 1800 MI," rather than a generic one like "inquiry about my family line." 6. Your messages through RootsWeb must always be in text format. If you try to use HTML or MIME formats or try to send an attachment with your message. The RootsWeb server will simply kick your message out and bounce it to me as an error. That's it. No harrassing "form your messages this and such way." No "you will...." Post anything you desire provided it's about Bower[s]/Bauer, etc. genealogy and ancestral material. Off-topic items and discussion will be covered in a later section here. CHAT: FORUM There are times when you have something to say that's not on-topic for the list, but you think the family should know it. You have two choices here: you can either send it to me to be related to everyone in the Sunday Coffee or you can use the CHAT: format. There are two rules to using CHAT: 1. You _must_ start your subject line with CHAT: 2. Absolutely NO genealogy is to be put in CHAT: messages because not everyone in the family wants to read CHAT: forum messages. Those people know to simply delete messages with CHAT: in the subject line. CHAT: format messages are not an everyday occurrence. They happen here and there. The only, and longest, time the CHAT: forum is actively open is the period starting Thanksgiving day through to January 2nd so everyone can post holiday messages, recipes, traditions, etc. After that, the CHAT: forum closes and resumes its normal inactivity. SUNDAY MORNING COFFEE Just as this morning, you should expect me to 'join' you for Coffee [the real thing, as I drink LOTS of it! :) ] We have a Coffee every Sunday morning and in it you'll always find a welcome to our newest cousins. Once you've received two or three Coffees, you pretty much know what's in that paragraph and will skip over it. The rest of the Coffee can cover just about anything to do with general genealogy, news about our homesite or updates on projects that the family is working on. Also at a Coffee will be news about cousins -- tragedies and elevated highs. Coffees are never put in the CHAT: format simply because everyone is expected to read them to find out what's happening with us as a family. THE BOWER FAMILY HOMESTEAD This is our homesite and where we house all our material. Its informal name is the Homestead. Our site is known throughout the web and receives quite a bit of traffic. In just under two years we have had over 33,000 hits - a phenomenal number for a surname study site. The Homestead has data on just about all 81 variant spellings we research. If you'd like to display pictures, a genealogy, wills, deeds, passengers lists, etc. you are certainly welcome to. It gets your material online for the world to see and hopefully for an inline cousin to see and contact you through. Just contact me at <[email protected]>, let me know what you'd like to do and we can set something up. You should know also that, for your safety and that of your relatives, we do not display any data of living people [other than your name and contact email address as submitter of the material]. A small piece of news you should know -- our site just recently won a site fight - not once did we win, but twice - and the second time against just first place winners. The family came together and worked very hard getting everything ready for that competition. Believe it or not, we actually swept the board, surprising all of us. The Homestead will be going up for its final round in the yearly competition in December and small plans have already begun to improve what we just finished creating! :) You are certainly welcome to make suggestions on improvements to our [now yours, too] homesite. A brief explanation of two of the Homestead's rooms -- The parlor is used for introducing our ancestors that lived 1790 or earlier while the dining room is for those 1790 and after. To introduce an ancestor you can either do a narrative-style or use any format you'd like. You can do a single generation or ten - with pictures or without. The entire introduction is up to you. The only requirement to introductions is that no living people are in it. To save me time, I'd also appreciate it if you would get it as close to camera-ready as possible, but that isn't a requirement. There is no way for anyone to upload any material to the Homestead. All data has to be sent to me where I'll set it up for display online. I will almost always contact you after I have it online, to get your final approval on it before I announce its display to the family. PROJECTS WE ARE CURRENTLY WORKING ON - see the 2nd message ****We now break for an unscheduled intermission****