Goodness - thanks to everyone for your suggestions which I'm sifting through. You've given me a lot to think about. I guess I want to enter information individually and it looks like the answer to my main question is to write "living" in the spaces for the parents so that I can continue. A lot of my research is still on paper rather than in a database so I'm not really ready to think about GEDcoms and things (all quite beyond me really!) but there are some branches of the family where I know little and have made no links so was thinking of trying to start again on the site in the hope of making some contacts as so many people seem to have done just that. Thank you all again for your most generous assistance and I hope no-one is offended if I don't reply individually to those who replied to me on the list. Carol

On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:59:38 EDT [email protected] wrote: Hello [email protected], > Thank you all again for your most generous assistance and I hope > no-one is offended if I don't reply individually to those who replied Not at all: My preference has always been for public thanks for help asked for, and received, publicly. To thank people privately might mean others start thinking you're not grateful when, in fact, you are. As a result, they could become reluctant to offer assistance when they know the answer to your query. All just because the person asking _appears_ to be an ingrate. As we all know, appearances can be deceptive. -- Regards _ / ) "The blindingly obvious is / _)rad never immediately apparent" It's becoming an obsession Teenage Depression - Eddie & The Hot Rods

Brad Rogers wrote: > Not at all: My preference has always been for public thanks for help > asked for, and received, publicly. > To thank people privately might mean > others start thinking you're not grateful when, in fact, you are. I have never thought that ever when generally browsing through messages on a list like this probably because I feel that what goes on privately between two people on a list isn't my business. My preference is to thank people privately for any help I may receive because I've never thought it fair to burden others with messages that aren't relevant to them (imagine one morning downloading over ten "thank you" messages and nothing else!). Private is more personal too. I also think it's worth considering the possibility that the person to whom you're grateful might miss your acknowledgement if you only post it to the list. > As a > result, they could become reluctant to offer assistance when they know > the answer to your query. All just because the person asking _appears_ > to be an ingrate. As we all know, appearances can be deceptive. Interesting . . . I guess there's a case for both methods! Regards, Jeanette.