I like it when people use the board address to respond to messages--unless the reply needs to be private. There are several reasons: 1) Sometimes good information on my family comes through some collaborative channel. I might not have known that my great-grandmother's sister married into the "XYZ" family, but I might recognize her name in your post. I often see information on collaborative families that *might* be related to my family, but isn't part of what I am reseaching right now. I feel 'funny' emailing people to ask them to include me in private correspondence when there is only a slim change that their line and mine connect. 2) Sometimes the smallest tidbit of information can help someone else. One couple in my family married at her father's home, instead of at the church where he was a minister (as did most of his children) because there was an epidemic at the time, and the heatlh department ordered no public gatherings. I learned that from an obituary for the same time period that someone else posted. Otherwise, I might have wondered why that marriage was different than the others and suspected a shotgun marriage or something. 3) Some people are too shy to post, but get a lot of new information from what others post to boards and message lists. Other are just learning how to do research, and learn from watching what others are doing. We should all learn how these message boards work when we hit reply. This list automatically put your address in the box when I hit reply, some will automatically list the board address.