Hello Cousins, The purpose of this list is to carry message traffic that supports HOOKER family genealogy in a manner that is acceptable to the members. This could include but is not limited to: 1. Queries about members of a HOOKER family requesting assistance or guiidance in connecting them to their family. 2. Queries about Publications and Sources that document HOOKER families. 3. Postings that provide a lineage of a HOOKER family and inquiring about connections. 4. Postings that discuss the accuracy or completness of a HOOKER family association (politely) 5. Postings that contain a will, deed or document that establish HOOKER family associations. I consider acceptable anything pertinent to HOOKER family genealogy. We have a small membership of about 50 members and are not really a very busy list so I have no desire to discourage message traffic as long as it sticks to the topic of HOOKER genealogy. However I do not view it my objective to badger you either into making posts so I prefer that you seldom hear from me. Let me take the opportunity to ask you to avoid posting poems, recipes and such or general genealogy information as there are many forums for that sort of thing and this is not the place. Also let me ask you that if you have questions or comments about the list, please shoot them at me first. That is why I have the tag lines on the messages set to put my address up periodically so you all know who to go to with questions. Just for your knowledge I also manage the ANDERSON, SANDUSKY, WETHINGTON, and TURRENTINE lists the reasons for which will be obvious if you visit my <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/patander73/home.html">Home Page for PatAnder73 </A> I receive a notification whenever anyone joins the list and I have been trying to notify them on that occasion to visit the <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/bigtruffel/hooker.html">Hooker Families</A> web site so that they can review the notes there and catch up a bit with what information has been posted to the list. If I have missed anyone please take the opportunity to visit the site where you will see links to the addresses and families that 25 or so of our membership have posted. If you do not see a post for yourself there, send me a one page synopsis of the family you are working on and I will add you to the site. (I have a couple that I have not added yet) You will also see there a link to the message archives. <A HREF="http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl">RootsWeb Mailing Lists -- Interactive Search</A> which will give you the opportunity to check all our prior messages. It is important that you realize that anything you post to the list is saved in those archives and can be searched on by people interested in HOOKER genealogy in the future. Therefore the list is a very good place to put transcripts or abstracts of documents that prove family associations. I am also in the throes of establishing a HOOKER querie board at <A HREF="http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/index.html">GenConnect</A> . This will be somewhat of a duplication of the <A HREF="http://www.genforum.com/"> GenForum</A> message board but a degree improved. When available I will link to it from the website and post a message to the list. I would welcome any suggestions as to how the list could be better utilized and am always in search of additional links to add to the web page that are HOOKER family specific. Patrick Anderson