Hello, all -- OK, everyone, in view of the kerfuffle on the list a few days go as well as some interaction I've had with subscribers behind the scenes (off list), I thought this might be a good opportunity to get it straight as to exactly which mailing list this is. There appears to be confusion among some subscribers out there. (Yes, it is subscribers, ie. plural not singular.) And, yes, I agree with Peter that Rootsweb may have avoided the whole problem by *not* assigning very similar names to completely different lists. But it evidently made sense to Rootsweb because that's precisely what they did. So we're stuck with it now. Anyway, on to exactly which mailing list this is. Why, it's: *Huguenots-Walloons-Europe*, (otherwise known as HWE). Note that this is *not* the Huguenot-Walloon mailing list. That's a different one entirely. And this is also *not* the Huguenot-L mailing list. That's a completely different one too. Not the same as HWE. Not the same as Huguenot-Walloon either. Yes, there are three Rootsweb lists which are concerned with the research of Huguenots and/or Walloons. Aren't we lucky? You can belong to all three, if you want to. And, of course, leave any of them whenever you like. But, be careful! Because if/when you decide to leave (unsubscribe from) a list, it can become a bit tricky.... ......if you're not clear which list(s) you belong to and/or which list(s) you wish to leave. Then it could seem like the Hotel California in that old song. You remember the line? "You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave........" So, the address to which you must send your subscribe and/or unsubscribe requests is different for all three lists. Just as the address for sending messages to each of the three lists is different. If, for example, you want to leave HWE, it will do absolutely no good to send your unsubscribe request to the address for Huguenot-Walloon. You may end up very frustrated and perhaps even post irritated messages on HWE -- which will also do you no good -- or even berate the concierge both on and off the list for the situation you have found yourself in. (I am not the admin of either of the other Huguenot lists, by the way, so I have absolutely no control over what happens there.) Info about these *other* lists has been on our website for years here: http://www.island.net/~andreav/othlists.htm. Those of you who visit this webpage will notice that, to complicate matters even further, there is yet a fourth Huguenot list but it's not one of Rootsweb's. So it's not only another separate list but it's in a non-Rootsweb environment all its own. The same info about the various lists is also included on John Fuller's website (Genealogy Resources on the Internet). For example, here under the category Religions & Churches (other than Jewish/LDS): http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_religions.html and also under mailing lists for France here: http://www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_country-fra.html A couple (not all) are also listed under mailing lists for Belgium and one is even listed under the category USA > General. The Rootsweb site also has info about all three of their Huguenot lists amongst various categories such as France, also Religions, also Ethnic-French and maybe even more for all I know. I frankly find it less user-friendly that the Fuller site but maybe that's just me. Now, at this point, some of you may be asking: why on earth do we need all these Hug lists? Well, the more the merrier, eh? Variety is the spice of....etc. I have no desire to re-visit this issue here at this time (it's come up before on HWE) so, please, don't post about it now. But -- long story short -- the other two Hug lists are US-oriented or at least they were in the past whether the list descriptions reflected this or not. I don't know if this is still true since it's been a long time since I checked either list archives. So HWE was created for those of us who either don't have any Huguenot or Walloon ancestors who ever ventured over to the New World or who just want a list with a more European focus to it. Because, as you know or should know, HWE is geographically focused on Europe and/or England and/or Ireland and posts to the list should reflect that. This last point -- ie. HWE's geographical focus -- was debated most recently during the first week of March 2004, exactly two years ago. At the time, I seem to recall that at least one of our subscribers appeared to be of the opinion that HWE's European focus was not only arbitrary but also unnecessary and maybe even silly. But, as I explained at the time, HWE is what it is and will remain so. Anyone interested in reading my 2004 comments on this topic or any of the related remarks from other subscribers, can find them in the list archives. For example, two of my posts were -- On 4 Mar 2004 post with subject line "Clarification re: Guideline" and On 5 Mar 2004 post with subject line "Continuing the Discussion (was: I've read the....)". If you aren't sure how to access our list archives, the HWE website here has complete info and instructions: http://www.island.net/~andreav/archives.htm. For example, select the threaded archives option and then go to March 2004. Regards, Andrea (your HWE list concierge)