I was recently asked a question about how to find things on the "many" Talbot Pages... Unfortunately, there are several places that data is stored. This makes it hard to understand and more difficult....there isn't a ONE button "Search" for USGenWeb. The various sections sort of evolved, so maybe a tiny history of them will also help explain them! 1) Talbot County Page - http://www.rootsweb.com/~gatalbot/gatalbot.htm This was the 1st idea! Every county within the USA has a county page handled by a County Coordinator. Keith Giddeon is our CC. It is usually an index to what is on-line for the County as well as information about the Courthouse, etc. Every county page looks different. The CC can use their own creativity and everything is in HTML format. (That's the coding that actually creates web pages, i..e. the ending of the file is .htm) There is a Search Engine on this page.....but remember it will ONLY cover what is actually ON this page! 2)Talbot County Archives Page - http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ga/talbot.htm There was a need for people to be able to contribute cemetery, wills, deeds, info in a simple format. So every county was set-up with an Archives Page and another volunteer to manage these files. I am the File Manager for Talbot county. When you send me your information, that's where I put it. You'll find ALL the cemeteries that we're working on there. There are also some church histories....Bible Records, etc. There is a Search Engine on this page..(scroll down to the bottom)...which covers ALL the Archives in Georgia (depending on how you "check" it) or just Talbot County itself. 3)Gen Connect Boards Then another system was thought of so that people could actually POST their own materials. Thus far in the design of USGenWeb a volunteer had to do this for you....and volunteers can get busy and not get the materials on-line as quickly as you'd like. Right under the TITLE of the page, i.e. TALBOT COUNTY, GA QUERY BOARD, you'll see in a row 4 items 1)post a query 2)Subscribe to Notification List (you don't need to do this if you are on the Talbot Mailing List itself, as all the messages will come through to you) If you did subscribe you would get a note (not the full message) that a message had been posted on the page. You AUTOMATICALLY get a note if someone posts a response to your message. 3)Surname List ***This is the important one. Click on this and it takes you to an alphabetical list....Keep clicking and you'll get to your Surname....and a page that shows any Query, Bible Record, etc that has this Surname listed in the Surname Box of the posting. ^^^That's another important thing to remember. When you post, in the Surname Box, list all the Surnames within the message....>>>not all the surnames you're researching!! If you don't list any, then your Query won't be indexed. If you list ALL your surnames, then people will be disappointed when they read that one message which may not pertain to it. http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ga/Talbot http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ga/TalbotBibl http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ga/TalbotBios http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ga/TalbotDeed http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ga/TalbotObits http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ga/TalbotPens http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/USA/Ga/TalbotWill These boards have their OWN Search Engine (and they cover ALL the Gen Connect Boards). Lots of people miss this Search Engine. It is right at the top of the page.... When you post things here, they will appear immediately on the page itself....BUT it takes at least 24 hours to show up in the Search Engine. Yes, these do appear to be repetitious....but I think they were a BIG improvement...as more data gets on-line with everyone helping out with the posting! It never hurts to have things posted in several places. 4) Mailing Lists This is the best known part! And also the place where most people are comfortable posting their information. The important thing is to have the SUBJECT line pertinent to the subject of the message....as that is how that Search Engine is set up. There are several ways to search this. 1) See EVERY message within a certain month http://archiver.rootsweb.com/ Type in GATALBOT OR http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl Type in GATALBOT. Select YEAR. Type in Cemetery.... and you'll see all the messages that we've been posting on the Cemeteries. Click on FULL, you'll get the actual message sent. SO WE HAVE 4 DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINES TO USE, so far!! Web page, Archives page, Gen Connect Page, Mailing List 5)Rootsweb Most people think that Rootsweb and USGenWeb are the same. They're not. Rootsweb is the Server and is a business and recently merged with Ancestry.com. USGenWeb is an organization of volunteers that is given free space on Rootsweb Server. But to help out, Rootsweb has also created "Resource Pages" for every county. http://resources.rootsweb.com/USA/Ga/Talbot/ Another Search Engine: This is not a USGenWeb Search engine, but does list all the Search Engines available through Rootsweb. http://searches.rootsweb.com/ Now, I'll probably think of some other things....but meanwhile....print out this page, and you'll have it to refer to. And please ASK me again, .....I really do welcome your questions, as some of this I take for granted and forget that it needs to be explained. Virginia