Save this one! Bob Tillman has written a two-part series on how best to utilize Rootsweb's search engines. Here is part one. Part two, searching mail list archives, I'll send tomorrow. -Valorie o SEARCH AND YE SHALL FIND. I recently received e-mail from a Mittelstadt researcher who complained that he could not find his family tree on RootsWeb and indicated that he was off to use one of the commercial subscription sites. I took his message as a challenge and searched for the Mittelstadt surname on RootsWeb. I made the assumption that he was interested only in the spelling Mittelstadt and did not search for variations. We show below the results of various searches on RootsWeb; however, RootsWeb is much more than a giant search engine that is used to brag about how many "names" it has. It is a community of avid genealogists and volunteers who interact with and help others daily on RootsWeb's 17,000+ mailing lists, 140,000+ message boards, and hundreds of other volunteer genealogical projects hosted on our servers. These people are the heart and soul of RootsWeb, contributing their unique talents and time in many ways to aid you in your genealogical quest The following list is a template for doing a search on all of RootsWeb's search engines. To follow the same process, simply click on the URLs listed below. The Mittelstadt surname results (the scores shown after each URL) are for Sunday, 26 December 1999. New material is added to RootsWeb every day, so be sure to repeat your searches regularly. The information you have been looking for these past 45 years might be uploaded somewhere on RootsWeb five seconds after you've completed a search that came up empty. Free Birth, Marriage and Death Index Search (England and Wales) <http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl> Score 0 GenConnect Message Board Search <http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi?search> Score 12 GenSeeker (Web sites on RootsWeb) <http://seeker.rootsweb.com/search.html> Score 35 Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild Search (ship passenger lists) <http://istg.rootsweb.com/> Score 2 Mailing List Finder Search (specific Mittelstadt mailing list) <http://lists.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/findlist.pl> Score 0 Mailing List Interactive Search (mailing list archives) <http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl> This tool allows one to search individually named mailing lists. As there were no Mittelstadt-specific mailing lists, I chose to search various German-related lists, including Alsace-Lorraine, Baden- Wurttemberg, Bavaria, Brethren, Bundesland, Deu-Ladbergen, Deutschland, GermanRussian, German-Kingdoms, Hesse, Hessenland, Niedersachsen, Ostfriesen, Pfalz, Posen, Prussia-Roots, Schleswig-Holstein-Roots, Surnames-German, and Trier-Roots. Score 12 (4 on Baden-Wurttemberg list, 6 on Posen list, and 2 on Prussia-Roots list). Mailing List Threaded Archives Search (most RootsWeb lists) <http://archiver.rootsweb.com/search.html> Score 3 Miscellaneous Database Searches (various state and newsgroup- related databases) <http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/searches/> o Arkansas -- 244,456 General Land Office Records to 1908 <http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/arkland/arkland.pl> Score 0 o California -- Sacramento County: 1890 Great Register <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sacramento/sacramento.pl> Score 0 o Louisiana -- 126,347 General Land Office Records to 1908 <http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/laland/laland.pl> Score 0 o South Carolina -- York County: Census Index, 1790-1850 <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/scyork/scyork.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota -- Dakota Territories Census -- 1860 <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sdcensus/sd1860cen.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota Genealogical Society Quarterly Index <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sdcensus/sd1860cen.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota -- Brown County History Index <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sdbrown/browninx.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota -- Brule County History Index <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sdbrulehist/sdbrule.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota -- Campbell County Obituaries <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sdcampbell/obitbook.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota -- Charles Mix County 1906 Atlas <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sdchasmix/1906atlas.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota -- Edmunds County Cemeteries <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/sdedmunds/cemetery.pl> Score 0 o South Dakota -- Edmunds Co., Obituaries from the Bowdle Pioneer <http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/searches/sdbowdle/bowdle.html> Score 0 o Tennessee -- Lincoln County Marriages from 1895 to 1910 <http://www.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/tnlincoln/tnlincoln.pl> Score 0 o Vermont -- Saxtons River 1920 Census <http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/searches/vtsaxriv/vtindex.html> Score 0 o Wisconsin -- 260,530 General Land Office Records to 1908 <http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/wisconsin/wisconsin.pl> Score 4 UseNet Newsgroup Archives o fr.rec.genealogie <http://searches.rootsweb.com/gen-ff.html> Score 0 o soc.genealogy.computing <http://searches.rootsweb.com/gencmp.html> Score 13 o soc.genealogy.french <http://searches.rootsweb.com/gen-fr.html> Score 0 o soc.genealogy.german <http://searches.rootsweb.com/gen-de.html> Score 47 o soc.genealogy.medieval <http://searches.rootsweb.com/gen-medieval.html> Score 0 o soc.genealogy.methods <http://searches.rootsweb.com/sgmethods.html> Score 13 o soc.genealogy.misc <http://searches.rootsweb.com/genmsc.html> Score 21 o soc.genealogy.slavic <http://searches.rootsweb.com/gen-slavic.html> Score 0 o soc.genealogy.surnames <http://searches.rootsweb.com/sgsurnames.html> Score 12 o soc.genealogy.uk+ireland <http://searches.rootsweb.com/genuki.html> Score 2 Obituary Daily Times Search (obituaries) <http://obits.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/obit.cgi> Score 33 Roots-L Mailing List Archive Search <http://searches.rootsweb.com/roots-l.html> Score 7 RootsLink Search (genealogy links) <http://resources.rootsweb.com/~rootslink/search.html> Score 0 Roots Location List Name Finder Search (researchers by location) <http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/Genea/rll> Score 0 RootsWeb Surname Helper (surname registries and Web sites) <http://surhelp.rootsweb.com/srchall.html> Score 11 RootsWeb Surname List (surname researchers) <http://rsl.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/rslsql.cgi#search> Score 3 Social Security Death Index Search (government-created database) <http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi> Score 277 USGenWeb Archives National Search (large variety of material, including census records) <http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/htsearch> Score 28 (One can also search the USGenWeb Archives on a state-by-state basis. This capability is very useful for more common search terms.) <http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ussearch.htm> U.S. Town and County Database Search (location research) <http://resources.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/townco.cgi> Score 0 WorldConnect GEDCOM Search <http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi> Score 87 GRAND TOTAL SCORE: 597 Mittelstadt citations on RootsWeb on 26 December 1999, ALL free of charge ALL of the time. There are many other German-related resources hosted by RootsWeb that likely would be helpful to Mittelstadt researchers, including the WorldGenWeb Project <http://www.worldgenweb.org/>, the CenEuroGenWeb <http://www.rootsweb.com/~ceneurgw/>, the international portion of the Roots-L Library at <http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/regional.html> and the Germany Visitors Center for GenConnect at <http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/index/Germany.html> There are also many non-search-engine-enabled resources on RootsWeb, such as census file images at <http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/census/> and <http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/cen_img.htm> Written by Robert R. Tillman. Previously published by RootsWeb.com, Inc., RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Genealogy News, Vol. 2, No. 52, 29 December 1999. RootsWeb: <http://www.rootsweb.com/>