a few things OBITS LIST STATUS OBITS - each Sunday i review three papers the schaumburg review at http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-thisweek/localnews/sc and the courier news at http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/obits/ and the daily herald at http://www.legacy.com/DailyHerald/Obituaries.asp which is the only one of the three that participates in the legacy.com - nationwide obituaries and which often has guest books for the deceased. I review for that sunday and back to the previous sunday. If there is a link to the guestbook, i include it and a date when it likely will DISAPPEAR. if the person noted is related to you in some way, i would suggest that you make note of the date and the link and visit that link to clip the guestbook for your family charts. after all, people who have left messages are people who KNEW the deceased or who were TOUCHed by the deceased in their earthlife... i review the papers in the order that i have noted above... and this is what i review for.... names i know of the three areas of interest... schaumburg, palatine and elk grove. often i go farther afield for an old name in wheeling, arlington heights, roselle or in dupage or elgin areas. it is usally because these names are linked either by their name in our conversations or thru marriage to someone in our area. I do limit what i move to the list to those over 75ish unless it is a military person or an owner of a business in our towns or a teacher. I think that these exceptions help to broaden the history of the area. I also include any obit for st peters schaumburg since we have many records of this church in the STDL collection and i would like that info base to continue. I DO NOT go to legacy.com to look to see which other papers the family might have entered the obit in. as we all know, the chicago tribune, the sun times and the dail herald all have different costs associated with placement of an obit or death notice. Becuase of that, the length of the obit may vary in each of those papers but in them all, as they are all part of the legacy.com obit service, the GUEST BOOK is shared. if you do find a person of interest within 30 days of the FIRST ENTRY OF THE OBIT, i would suggest that you check legacy.com for other information. AFTER the 30 days, legacy.com will charge you for the data. Depending on what i have happening in my life, sometimes i do not get to this each Sunday, but I do go back and i do keep a complete continuity of the data... A quick review will be about one hour... a quick review with lots of losses to us, can take easily 2 hours. if you are not sure if i am posting anything for a given sunday, the links are above and you can get to those papers at any time..... I will tell you that i am always pleased that the quick review is in fact, a quick review. I am saddened when i have to post an entry of a person i know, or know of, or who was mentioned in our interviews and who is now lost from us. I encourage you all to take the time to look in the files that you have of your own families and post the obits that you have... you have for years, see how i do it... go for it... share the information that you have with others... who knows, yhou might post an obit to the list and find that there is another relation just waiting for SOMETHING pertaining to their family. LIST STATUS at present, we have about 100 people on the list. As you know, it is only a few who post. THat means that all the others who do not post at least their names are just waiting for magic to happen that WILL NOT HAPPEN unless some basic introductory post is made to the list. We are an information building list.. an announcement sort of list. If you do not ask for information, you will not GET information. SO in this new year, if there is anything that you can do to help yourself, it would be to take the time to post a few emails to the list and cite some names and some relationships. NO need to make a huge chart-detailed post... just the kind of post that you might VOICE when you meet someone who is interested in genealogy... something to give folks the info they need to contact you for common ancestors. I see every person who subscribes to the list and i know that 90 percent of them do not EVER make a single post. It makes me sad that an avenue at your disposal is NOT being used to its fullest. so, to that end, click on one of these and make a post or two about your family and open up the new year! il-cook-schaumburg-L@rootsweb.com il-cook-palatine-L@rootsweb.com il-cook-elkgrove-L@rootsweb.com make a decent subject, perhaps with surnames and talk to us. HAPPY NEW YEAR and here's wishing that everyone gets something of value from their searching efforts!