OUR OFFICIAL list name is IL-COOK-SCHAUMBURG SEARCHING in the LIST ARCHIVES HOWTOS INTERACTIVE SEARCH and THREADED ARCHIVES Here is a step by step for those who have yet to try looking at the archives of the great Rootsweb.com mailing lists for information that might have been posted in the past that might link to your family..... Once you find out how simple it is to use the archives, you will be using them as your PERSONAL FILE CABINETS.... and lots of the clipping that you do of list submittals will diminish all BECAUSE it will be IN THE ARCHIVES..... Once you learn it for ROOTS, or gen-newbie, you will be able to apply it to ANY of the rootsweb.com lists.... and you can SEARCH or BROWSE any list whether you are subscribed OR NOT..... all the while, looking for the wealth of information waiting for you to find it.... Think of the list archives as a LIBRARY on LINE - 24 hours a day..... For example, if you are looking for the HOWTOS (stuff I have written about HOW to Do somethin') comments........ first.... go to rootsweb.com then scroll to the mailing lists grouping on the left side.... now scroll to INTERACTIVE SEARCH (this is the one where you use query word or words to SEARCH) click on it... Now since I wrote this originally for the ROOTS list, and this example is for that list, enter in the official name of ROOTS.. (or try on your own search words on the list of import such as gen-newbie or NYERIE or cook-co-il) let me call attention to the fact that there is ...no -M or -L. or -D in the list name...... Click submit..... now enter in HOWTOS (if you are looking in a year other than THIS YEAR, then check the year of interest) or whatever query word you are interested in and submit.... when you get results, click on the FULL and the message will open. You will get the emails for all of the noted year-to-date that had HOWTOS in the content or subject.... NOTE... symbols work ONLY if in the email addresses... but they do NOT work as stand alone... and search terms and techniques do NOT work like google... they work ONLY as illustrated on the top of the query box... with AND etc. NOW if you would like to just look at or browse the messages - like reading a newspaper - BROWSING - but that means ALL of the messages of only a SPECIFIC MONTH, just as you would the paper for that month by the titles of the articles, then you would BROWSE the Threaded Archives.... ("threaded" means "linked" to each other emails determined by the REPLY TO response of the senders, not just the subject) so, go back to rootsweb.com home page.... down to the mailing list grouping again on the left side and click on THREADED ARCHIVES..... enter in ROOTS......or other official mailing list name (remember, that part before the -L@rootsweb.com<mailto:-L@rootsweb.com>) click on the MONTH and YEAR OF INTEREST .... and ALL the messages for the month will show..... they are threaded, whereas everyone that answered a specific message by replying to the email will be indented under the original post.... NOW if you want to see the messages in the SAME order that they came to your machine, then go up to the top area of the page where it says "threaded".... and open it.... scroll to CHRONOLOGICAL and click WITH DATES and click on REDISPLAY.... all the messages will be redisplayed in the same order that you saw them.... (here is a relatively new option and that is rev-chronological and it places the messages in reverse order......newest first, but treaded not unthreaded..) IN both of these archive result formats, your CONTORL+F will work on the listing of posts but will only work for the words found in the subjects.... (another reason for having good, complete informative subjects!) CONTROL+F DOES not search the content of the post. valentine