Barbara I am sorry if I have caused any offence. I think however you have perhaps misunderstood my intentions and the purpose of the new website. Genealogy Wise is a social networking website not a mailing list. It is not in competition with the Kingsclere list as it works in a completely different way. I viewed it as a way of promoting the list and bringing in new researchers who might not otherwise have considered joining. It is also a good way of promoting the various local family history societies. Have a look at the list I have set up for Devon: http://www.genealogywise.com/group/devon As you will see I've added links to the Devon Roots web list and to the Devon Family History Society amongst others. I've started to set up some surname groups and am including links wherever possible to the relevant Rootsweb mailing lists and message boards. Similarly there is also a Hampshire group: http://www.genealogywise.com/group/hampshiregenealogy The Genealogy Wise website is due to be launched on 17th July and will no doubt receive extensive press coverage. My intention of posting to the list was to give people the opportunity to set up a pre-emptive group before the launch and perhaps if they are interested to set up groups for the surnames they are interested in. If someone on the list doesn't set up a group you can guarantee that someone else will do so. There is already a Genealogy Wise administrator going through the alphabet setting up surname groups and she is now up to the letter C. If the early days are anything to go by this website has the potential to be really huge. It has the potential to bring in people who hadn't previously considered using a mailing list or joining a family history society. Facebook already has 200 million plus members. A dedicated genealogy social networking site will never reach quite the same dizzy heights but could potentially grow to be very large, reaching millions of people. This is an opportunity to embrace the new technology and get it to work to our advantage. Kind regards Debbie Kennett

On Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:46:27 EDT DEBBIEKENNETT@aol.com wrote: > Facebook already has 200 million plus members. A dedicated genealogy > social networking site will never reach quite the same dizzy heights > but could potentially grow to be very large, reaching millions of > people. This is an opportunity to embrace the new technology and get > it to work to our advantage. Speaking purely personally I have no intention of joining _any_ "social networking" site. Lots of this so called new technology is a fashion trend and could die just as quickly as it has grown. I am quite happy with the old technology of mailing lists. -- John Lewis Debian & the GeneWeb genealogical data server