Hi All, Many of you who are new to the lists aren't aware of how the Rootsweb Lists are set up in the Western Midlands of England due to how they are advertised in the Lists page on Rootsweb. I'll List here mainly those that have a membership either approaching or well over 1000 subscribers (ie. those that you are more liable to receive better results) The oldest list by far is MidMarch (one of the original Rootsweb lists) which covers :- Hereford, Worcester, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Monmouth etc., a great list for those who have ancestry that moved between counties. Staffordshire:- The second List set up following the success of MidMarch to cover the Ancient County of Stafford alone (This is a very large list with a huge amount of subscribers). Black-Country :- Another multi-County List (ie STS SAL WOR) set up solely to cover the Black Country Towns which saw so much expansion during the Industrial Revolution. The population covered in this list is huge, actually outstripping Birmingham by far Potteries :- Wholly within Staffordshire, a List to cover the Pottery Towns surrounding Stoke-On-Trent ie., Hanley, Burslem, Newcastle etc., another area that had/has a huge population. There are a number of much smaller "locality" lists with a much reduced amount of subscribers due to their nature ie., Sedgley that concentrate on a very small area to the North of Dudley. Rootsweb listowners such as Myself and Polly are only too happy to lead you in the right direction if we believe that you may be subbed to the wrong List for your researches, you only have to ask if no replies are forthcoming to a request. The only thing to remember is that we aren't at our computers 24 hours a day, and we do have days off <g> (although there are assistants in different time zones) and if we get a plethora of reqests, it may take a few days to answer. One final thing, we are unpaid volunteers and don't profess to know the answer to every query, but we are confident, that if we are stuck, someone will come up trumps eventually. I speak for myself with this, "What I know would fill a book, what I don't know would fill a library"! Good Hunting with your researches HTH Dave 8-)) Wednesbury England Listowner: Staffordhire, Black Country, Potteries etc., ps. Newer/ish Lists in the area are Worcester, Shropshire, Warwick etc., all accessed via the Rootsweb mailing List page. All are off-shoots of the original MidMarch list.