Dear East-Texas-Rooters, This listowner talks only occasionally, but usually says a lot when she does. If you are going to participate in the list, you need to read my occasional guidelines and heed them! The first one is at the top here. There should be NO responses to this message on the list. Please send all responses to me privately at [email protected] If for some reason, you do not get a response from me, it doesn't indicate lack or interest or disagreement. I read every message you send and take it very much into consideration. This is your list. I been concerned for a while that things on ETR were not staying strictly on genealogy, in the sense of queries, family group sheets and pedigree charts. However,. I prefer to let things ride, if I can, and I did see several people who seemed to be very appreciative of the URLs and other information being provided by Alice and others. I've been off-line on and off this past week due to a death in the family. One of my closest friends who is also my cousin lost her baby very tragically. I think there is very little in the world that hurts as much as losing a child, and it made me realize that while the computer is wonderful, it is times like this that really define what "family" means. I had hoped that y'all (I have *never* seen it as 'yawl') or in Yankee land, all of you, could take care of yourselves for a while, while I was involved in off-line family concerns. I think that Kathy is right, though, that I need to articulate some guidelines. East Texas as defined by this list is not any strict list of counties. It is a state of mind. That is, if your ancestors lived anywhere in the eastern part of the state and/or considered themselves East Texans, this is your list. There is a list for the area near the Oklahoma border, although we cover it also. There is a list for the hill country around Austin and San Antonio; there is a list for West Texas, and there is now a Texas-Roots list for everything not covered anywhere else. So, basically, you're welcome here, but if your ancestors are from way down the valley or way over in the panhandle or way out west, you probably will be disappointed that you will make few if any connections. All Texas counties have or soon will have their own list, so don't forget to make use of that resource as well. EAST-TEXAS-ROOTS is for the discussion of all aspects of East Texas Genealogy and History. That does include more than queries, family group sheets, pedigrees and genealogy in the narrow, technical sense. Information about history, culture, including Cajun is interesting and helpful. Presumably we want to know something about how our ancestors lived as well as who, when and where. Maps and geography are always relevant to genealogists. Angus Robinson rightly pointed out that language is important, also. So all of these topics are appropriate to East-Texas-Roots. However, all of us, and I am not singling out or picking on anyone here -- need to use common sense and be sensitive to the needs and limitations of others. When you have something to say that seems to you to be something that would be relevant, interesting and useful to the whole group of East-Texas-Roots subscribers, or at least to most of them, then it should be sent to the list. An occasional personal note -- again, if it is relevant to many -- for instance, I noted more than one message describing in very personal terms the joys and frustrations of working with death certificates -- I think that is fine. But when general-purpose history, culture and human interest become "chit-chatting" and *especially* if you are chit-chatting with one or a few friends, then at that point, those messages should go private. Similarly, a general thankgiving to the whole list for the help received on some particular question or research puzzle is appropriate, especially if you give us a summary of what was given to you. But personal thank yous, and requests of information of a personal nature, and any complaints by individuals to individuals should -- MUST -- go to that individual. If the message should appropriately go private, it's your responsibility to make sure the individual email address is in the TO: field. For me, this means I have to take an extra couple of moments to copy and paste it. You may have to do something similar. Even though the vast majority of us may be persons of faith, this is not an appropriate place for expressions of faith or the lack of it. It is or could be appropriate to discuss churches, church records, ways that people worshipped and believed in former times as long as it is in an historical context and has some relevance to genealogy. There's a difference and people need to be clearly aware of it and make the distinction. Expression of your opinion about things like whether something is appropriate or not, or whether or not we should "move on" do not belong on the list. In my experience, the best way to handle it is as follows. Let's say there is a discussion you are following, and you agree it has some merit, but it has begun to run its course and get old and redundant. If you write and express your opinion to the list, 155 people -- maybe more -- will do the same, greatly aggravating the problem. If you write privately to the person(s) who are involved, they may just get insulted, and create more of a problem. However, if you will start a new topic on a subject that returns closer to strict genealogy, chances are those 155 people will also follow suit. If you feel you need to, you can let the listowner (me) know privately -- but generally, unless there is some unusual crisis, or I can't get on because of bad weather (a problem this past week for many of us who live in East Texas), I will be following all the threads, so I usually do know what is going on. Whenever you write a message, you need to make sure that you have a clear, simple, accurate subject heading. I believe there are a few email systems where this can be a bit tricky, especially for those in digest mode. However, for the vast majority of us, this is something that we can do easily and we need to take responsibility for doing it. There just isn't any good reason for the vague, meaningless headers that I think have made our recent conversations less helpful than they could have been. Use your common sense, folks. Take an extra moment to redo the header. If you are leaving a query, DO NOT call it "My Family". (I made that up! I am not pointing at anybody!) Call it John Smith 1830-1880 Angelina->Rusk Co or Smith Family in Angelina 1820-1900 if it's a lot more than just John (I made this up, too). But let us know in the header what you are going to talk about in the body of the message. This is YOUR responsibility. The list isn't moderated, the listowner has no control over any headers except her own. I agree with the the people who recognize that unless the members of the list are willing to use common sense, chit-chat in private, say please and thank you in private, criticize in private, write meaningful queries and meaningful subject headers, the serious researchers will get disgusted and unsubscribe. Folks, whether you are experienced, a beginner or somewhere in between, we ALL need those serious researchers who know where to find records and how to read them, ditto with maps and so on. If you want those serious researchers to stay around and help you find your ancestors, you need to decide to discipline yourself to stay on topic. That does NOT mean that we all have to go around with a long face and NEVER share a joke, or lighten up. It does mean that, in general, in any set of 100 messages on East-Texas-Roots, a very, very large majority should be on-topic and yeah, basically serious. When people sign on to East-Texas-Roots mailing list, they do so because they are interested in Genealogy, they have ancestors who lived in East-Texas and they are hoping to connect with people who can help them sort out their families, and help them learn about the history and culture of the place and time those ancestors lived. Some people have to connect long distance and pay by the minute. Much more often, people are dedicated genealogists who also have a life! Some may have spouses and children, one or more full-time or part time jobs, and/or be caring for an elderly or sick relative. They are interested in what there is available on East-Texas-Roots and they want to, and do contribute as well, but they get frustrated when topics go on and on and on and/or are peripheral to their research and/or become visiting and chatting. I have to admit I have real sympathy here. These are the people who are the core of the list, and it is their needs that need to be met. Some people respond to the frustrations these people express by saying 'Use the delete key'. That's good advice up to a point. But my experience is that it takes a LOT of time and energy to go through hundreds of messages, deleting most, but at the same time trying to sift out the handful that might contain something really important to your research. For that reason, I discourage sending genealogy poems and jokes (once in a while is okay, but I really mean once in a while -- NOT daily). ANY kind of chain letter, or cross-posting is forbidden and this is from Rootsweb, which hosts these lists. I see no problem with an occasional reference to legitimate places where serious researchers can go to find material they may be looking for. For instance, Carolyn Ericson is a professional genealogist who has made a lot of valuable primary material available to people researching in Nacogdoches and neighboring counties at reasonable prices. Exchanging information about where to find such material seems to me to be a help to anyone interested in genealogical research in East Texas. Also, sometimes Genealogical or Historical societies have valuable material for sale, and letting us know about them from time to time is legitimate. For instance, the Nacogdoches Genealogical Society is trying to find at least 200 people willing to buy the book on Nacogdoches County Families so that it can be reprinted. People on ETR are the very people who may be most interested. There are others, however, who are involved in scams and spams, and those are strictly forbidden and anyone engaging in that kind of activity will be permanently rejected from Rootsweb lists. On that topic, a *brief* discussion of situations like the problem of Halbert's is fine, but the discussion should rather quickly go private. Halbert's has been around for MORE than a generation. New genealogists don't know about it and need to, but *everyone else* does know and doesn't need to read an extended thread. I appreciate all those, including but not limited to Alice, who have sent URLs of helpful web sites. I do not want to discourage that at all, but it would be helpful to include a description of what one would find at the web site, why you found it helpful, etc., and put the address in a consistent form, i.e., http://www.helpful-url.com. (This is NOT a real URL). Make the subject header relevant. For instance, 'Helpful websites for maps and geography' -- tells us what to expect in the body of the message. Then, several URLs on the same subject could be sent together. Those interested can go immediately to that thread; those not interested can immediately skip it. I keep coming back to 'Use common sense' and 'Take an extra moment or two, that is all it takes, to proofread, put details of who, where and when into queries, make subject headers meaningful, make personal message private.' All 650+ of us are not going to agree every time on what is relevant. But I truly believe that 90% or more of the decisions that need to be made about whether to send a message to the list or privately, and what to include in the header and the query can be made using common sense and common sensitivity to the needs of others. If that really happened, the noise level on the list would be so low that even those who have the least time and the most expense wouldn't mind the occasional message that would come through that they, personally, might feel isn't appropriate or should have gone privately. SO -- take an extra moment to use common sense when you send any message to this or any other list, and I guarantee that if everyone does that, the list will become all that you hoped it would be when you subscribed -- and more! Finally -- to those of you who have tried to unsubscribe or were wanting to, I hope that you will change your mind and stay. And as always, thanks to all those who give SO much to this list! Sincerely, Pam Phillips Listowner East-Texas-Roots-L Email address: [email protected]