My friends - There are a few administrative items that I need to bring to your attention at this time. I apologize for what may be a long message, but these items need our attention. First, there has been a lot of discussion around the 'Net over the past few days about the new form of worm which is being sent around. You should be aware that this worm may come "disguised" with headers that make it appear that it is coming to you from a mail list, such as the JP or some other one. It may also come with a "forged" return address, which may appear to be someone you know who is on a mail list. Once the system is infected, the worm goes about its business of attaching itself to all outgoing messages, without the sender knowing that he/she has an infected machine. RootsWeb is researching this problem, but it is difficult to contend with it at their end, because most of the traffic which has the infection does not go through their system, and thus any filter they put up will not catch the worm. So what do we do? These worms need MS Outlook and/or Explorer to propagate, so those of you who do not use either of these programs should be safe in any event. But, the way to be *absolutely* safe is to *NEVER* open any attachment to an e-mail which you may receive which has an .exe extension on it, such as bboy.exe, goal1.exe, new.exe, etc. I will not open any attachment with an .exe file extension, even if i know the person who sent it. We do not deal, in genealogy, with attachments that come to us with .exe extensions - we work with .txt, .rtf, doc and perhaps one or two other textual extensions - on the JP List, we work with plain text(i.e., files with .txt on the end, such as CubaCemeteryGraves.txt) almost exclusively. These types of files are not "executable" files, and do not carry viruses or worms. But even so, if I receive an uninvited attachment of any sort, whether .exe or .txt, or any other type - I will not open it - it gets a swift kick to the trash bin. Most folks will advise you in advance if they are going to send an attachment, and you can then be prepared to receive it, and know what it is. So, I suggest that we all avoid opening any unsolicited attachment that comes to us, and that we *never* open one with an .exe file extension. This will be the last message I will be sending about this current worm infestation, unless something else develops, and there should be no discussion on the List about it, as per our guidelines. If you have a concern, let me know privately and I will investigate it. One of our subscribers has advised me that Ancestry.com is having one of their "free" database periods for the next few days, so if you are interested in taking a look, they are at www.ancestry.com Another one of our subscribers, who is new to the List, has passed along the URL for an interesting site that describes one man's effort to preserve grave markers. While this is not in the JP region, and is somewhat off-topic for us, I am going to include it here. It is Christmas, and we rejoice in the good things that folks are doing: http://starnews.com/extra/features/99/dec/1207st_cemetery.html Secondly, I want to bring you up to date on the situation I mentioned earlier concerning requests come to me for data from people who were not on one of the 4 lists which I host, with the JP List being the flagship for the others. It appears that it is a manifestation of the PML offering which RootsWeb has put into effect recently. People are seeing these surnames through their PML mailings from RootsWeb, which contain copies of messages, from any of the 16,000 mail lists which RootsWeb hosts, that contain whatever surnames that the individual to whom the PML message is sent has requested. This is an excellent service, provided to contributors to RootsWeb, but it has created for me(and for a few other list hosts who post data)a problem in that we are receiving requests from folks who are basically on "fishing expeditions" - that is, they have no knowledge that any of their people with the surname in question ever resided in the JP - they just want to see what the data says. We all have had to go on such expeditions over the years, but we generally did in the past through books, which did not effect others. That situation has radically changed due to the Internet. I have begun to address it by adding some language to the data posts which some of you may have noticed, in which I say that, "Subscribers to the lists I host can request...". That has resulted in a decline in these PML requests, and I have not yet seen any flood of people subbing to the List, asking for the data, and then unsubbing. So I think that approach will make this sort of thing manageable from my end. It is approaching the time of year when a flood of new people will enter the cyberworld, as a result of computers received as Christmas gifts. As I said last year at this time, we need to be gentle with these new folks, as they will be excited and enthusiastic, and may occasionally violate List guidelines. I will handle any such situations, and your cooperation in allowing me to do so will be appreciated. Flaming is not an option, as tenured members of the JP and other lists I host know. Finally(I'm about done<g>), let me repeat again the guidelines for this List: <> No Flaming - if you have a problem with a post that someone has made to the List, let me know by private e-mail. Anyone receiving flames from other List members via private e-mail should not respond, but forward the message to me for disposition. <> No virus warnings or discussions on the List. If you have a concern about this subject area, let me know by private e-mail and I will investigate. <> No attachments sent to the List <> No off-topic posts or "chat". Our mission is to explore the history and genealogy of the 8 counties in the KY Jackson Purchase region (Ballard, Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Marshall and McCracken). We do not deal with other western KY counties, nor with TN counties, except in passing when a progenitor may have come from a TN county to a JP county, or vice-versa. If you make a contact through a List posting, please take the further discussion to private e-mail. Please refrain from posting messages which contain material that may be interesting or informative, but is off-topic for the JP List. If you have something in that category that you think the List should see, send it to me by private e-mail and I'll be happy to take a look at it. As we continue to grow, staying focused and on-topic becomes even more important. Well, that's it for this edition of Administratavia. If you have any questions or concerns, please send them to me privately. There will be an abbreviated schedule of data posts for this week and I'll mention that in tomorrow's message. Until then.............. -B ============================================================