i have just recently completed (for the most part completed ) reviewing obits from the chicago tribune archives. THESE ARE IN THE ARCHIVES FOR THE SCHAUMBURG LIST...not in Elk Grove or Palatine. This is because of VOLUME! so now, since I have wrapped it up as a project, it would be a good time to go to the archives of the IL-COOK-SCHAUMBURG list (that is its official name) and enter in a query for your family name in the query box.... the system will automatically assume this current year so just click submit.... to open the emails which appear, just click FULL..... and check the email.... now, you might not want to read the entire page, so do a CONTROL+F and then enter in your name again and click FIND NEXT all the way thru the document.... IF YOU DO NOT FIND YOUR SURNAME, drop me a note at [email protected] with the surname and at least one maiden name that will be part of that family group and I will check... below is a complete writeup about how to use the archives, both in reading them like a paper and searching them..... Subject: Threaded Archives/interactive search - HOWTOS HOW TO on the 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............ 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..... looking for the wealth of information waiting for you to find it.... Think of the archives as a LIBRARY on LINE - 24 hours a day..... For example, if you are looking for the 1870 census comments......... first.... go to rootsweb.com then scroll to the mailing lists grouping.... now scroll to INTERACTIVE SEARCH click on it... Now since you know it was the ROOTS-M list, enter in the official name of ROOTS...(or gen-newbie) notice.....no -M or -L....... Click submit..... now enter in 1870 (since i wrote this in 2002, click on 2002) and submit.... when you get results, click on the FULL and the message will open You will get the emails for all of 2002 that had 1870 in the content of subject.... NOTE... symbols work if in the email addresses... but they do not work as stand alone... and search terms do NOT work like google... they work only as illustrated on the top of the query box.... NOW if you would like to just look at the messages - but that means ALL - of the messages of only October 2002, as you would the paper for that month by the titles of the articles, then you would BROWSE the archives.... go back to rootsweb.com home page.... down to the mailing list grouping and click on THREADED ARCHIVES..... enter in ROOTS......or other official mailing list name click on OCTOBER 2002.... 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.... To open them, merely click on the subject and it will open..... back up using your back up key in the upped left.... valentine