There has been some confusion as to how to research the Archives and exactly which URL to use for doing so. Actually, there are two addresses, and each connects you to a different page which serves a specific purpose. Let's start with the "original" page and see what it offers. You can log on to: http://lists.rootsweb.com/~archiver/lists/ Here you can navigate to any of the 1000+ RootsWeb Lists by clicking in the appropriate places. I'm going to use one of my Lists as an example: The BROYLES List. Once you have connected to the above URL, you will see an "ftp-type" page, no frills, no graphics, just an index of all the Lists available. Scroll down the page until you come to BROYLES-L. Click on that link. You will then get a page that shows all the Archives for the BROYLES-L List. In this case, the only option is for the year 1997. When all the old Archives from MAISER are added, you will have a choice of 1997, 1996, or 1995. Anyway, click on 1997. Then you will have a choice of the "month" of 1997 that you want to look at for Archives. Again, since not all of the RootsWeb files have been archived yet, the only choices are November and December. When all the files have been added, you will have a choice of any month in the year. Let's click on December. Now you get a "real" web page, showing all the email for the BROYLES-L List that has been processed this month. Each message is listed, showing the Subject, the # of followups, and the name of the sender. Now let's click on a message with the Subject of "BROYLES/ WILLIAMS", that shows 1 followup. You then get a page containing the original message and the followup. Each message is shown exactly as it was when it was sent to the List, including the headers, and all the body. At the bottom of each page, you will find links to: Email Archives (All Lists) Email Archives (This List, This Month) Email Archives (This List, This Year) Email Archives (This List, All Years) From here you should be able to look through the Archives at your leisure and see what has gone before. NOW, TO THE SECOND URL: This page at RootsWeb does not give you the opportunity to see Archives, categorized by Year, Month, etc. It gives you the opportunity to SEARCH through ALL the email for any given List for a specific word or phrase. Go to this URL: http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl You will get a web page where you type in the name of the List and then click on Submit. IMPORTANT !!!!! When you type in the name of the List, you DON'T type in the "-L" or the complete address. You type in JUST the NAME of the List. Let's go on with our example of BROYLES. In the space provided, you type in BROYLES. Not BROYLES-L or BROYLES-L@rootsweb.com Once you type in the name of the List and click on Submit, you will again find a place to type something in. This time you type in the WORD or PHRASE that you want to search for. Then you click which year, in this case 1997 or 1996, then click on Submit. Let's type in the word JACOB. (When you type in your search word or phrase, OR when you type in the name of the List, case doesn't matter. You can type in Broyles or bROYLES, or BrOyLeS, or Jacob or jACOB; the search is case insensitive.) Click on 1997, then Submit. You'll get a page showing every message in the Archives from 1997 that contains the word JACOB, either in the Subject OR in the body of the message. From there you are on your own, just look at each message to see if it's what you're looking for. To search for a phrase, let's say JACOB BROYLES, you would type the following in the space provided: Jacob and Broyles To see all messages that contain EITHER of these words. To see all the messages that contain ONLY the words JACOB BROYLES, type in: Jacob Broyles If you want to search for JACOB BROYLES or WILLIAM BROYLES, type the following: (Jacob Broyles) or (William Broyles). That's all there is to it. You don't have to be worried that a "search worm" from some unscrupulous entrepreneur will be able to look through these Archives and get your email address or any other information. As you should be able to see from the above, there are just too many things that a searcher has to be able to do for an automatic program to plunder the Archives. We can forget having to use "X-Commands" to retrieve past messages. This way is much better. You can read a message, highlight all of it, copy, and paste to get it on your harddrive. OR, a much better way is, once you have clicked on a specific message and it shows up, click on File, then Save As, and navigate to the drive and directory where you wish is stored and it will be there just as if you had "Saved" it from your email program. If anyone has any questions, PLEASE send them to me privately at: sgtgeorg@concentric.net And do not send back to the List. Merry Christmas SgtGeorge ==== DURMAN Mailing List ==== To unsubscribe from DURMAN, send an e-mail message to: DURMAN-L-request@rootsweb.com (for individual messages) DURMAN-D-request@rootsweb.com (for Digest mode) Subject: unsubscribe In the body include only one word: unsubscribe (Turn OFF your signature file when sending this command)