You have seen this before.....well most of you have. But there have been a number of new members recently and hopefully, I have not bored them, as yet, with this continuing information. Once a month I should send you reminders of the information available within the companion pages for this Ortenau List. I know I have been remiss in doing this but I have memories of another Rootsweb List where such messages of "instructions" come with such regularity and force that they can become annoying to some readers. However, I have been reminded so I will take my chance on being hopefully not too annoying to you. And, this time, I have an additional excuse. The URLs for the Companion Pages have changed. ******************************** < http://ortenau.speedyspace.de/ > has been replaced by < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/ >. < http://ortenau.speedyspace.de/search/ > has been replaced by < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/search/ >. ******************************** Remember < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/ > and < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/search/ >. Make yourself a note of the new addresses. Search these sites so that the addresses will be in the history of your browser and easy for you to return to the sites --------------- The prime companion page is at < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/ >. This address gives you a short description in German and in English of the Ortenau. A search availability at this site allows us to search a name or a word within the many individual Ortenau town pages. There are links to articles on each of the towns within the Ortenau including details on the town history, the areas of the historic Ortenau, the various wars which ravaged the area as well as links to the Rootsweb location for the Ortenau List which would allow searching and browsing into past messages, to a map which identifies the area of each of the towns of the Ortenau and to a list of books available at the Landesbibliographie Baden-Württemberg which offer information on towns and areas of the Ortenau. Agreed we who read English may feel stymied but the Town pages, although in German, are in fairly simple German and most of those details can be figured out and understood. --------------- Perhaps the more important companion page for you is at < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/search/ > where there are links to the same list of Ortenau towns but these town links allow us to search each town for other researchers involved in family from that town and we are then allowed to place our own specific interests at the town. Further links will take us to a Yahoo! site where our List members have uploaded pictures which pertain to the Ortenau, to a number of Source listings of surnames and specific individuals found in old records, to pages offered by our List members and to a page of additional web sites which offer various details about Baden, the Ortenau and the towns of the Ortenau. If you have used the previous pages, check out the new pages to see if there are any new listings which may be of value to you. If you have never used the previous pages, all the better to get involved, do your searching on both pages, get your history lesson (in German) on your Ortenau town of interest and make your entries in the Search section. And then place your specific question where you need help.....directly into the Ortenau List. We have a number of knowledgeable Ortenau researchers within our List membership and aid to you is available from a List inquiry. Again, the new pages are: < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/ > and < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de/search/ >. djweber [email protected]