I got a kick out of this and thought maybe it would be a good idea if we ALL double checked our old posts. CLEANING UP MESSAGE BOARDS DEBRIS: Tips from Elvis. Elvis has not left the building. However, he has left a trail of old e- mail addresses behind. He personally asked me to share this information with y'all. Yes, it's me, Elvis. Most people think I died but, the truth is, I only decided to drop out of sight to take up the pursuit of genealogy. They call me "The King" and I got to wondering whether I might actually be descended from Kings. So I decided to find out. One of my favorite tools for trying to locate information about my ancestors is the RootsWeb Message Boards. Now I move around a lot and I change e-mail addresses frequently, too. Recently when I checked in at the Message Boards and searched to see whether I had any responses to my old queries I realized to my horror that no one could find me no matter how hard they had been trying because the contact addresses on my old messages were obsolete. Every attempt to contact me was "returned to sender, address unknown." I get all shook up when I think of all the opportunities to meet my kinfolks that I've missed and those kissin' cousins that I haven't been able to connect with. I set out to take care of business and update my contact address on all of the old messages. Discovered that there were several steps I needed to take to ensure that all past messages now list my new address, which is: [email protected] I started off with updating my most recent, but no longer valid, address [email protected] This address was one I had registered previously (created an Ancestry account by clicking on the NEW TO ROOTSWEB link and completing the required information on the registration form) and had been using for messages posted on the Message Boards within the past year. Now, updating this one was a cinch and very logical. All I had to do was login under my account and click on MY PROFILE. I changed my e-mail address in two places where it says E-mail and Post E-mail. I clicked to submit the changes. This took care of updating my address on all messages which I had posted using THIS account. But, wait a minute ... I did a search of the boards for messages posted by Elvis, using the AUTHOR box on the ADVANCED SEARCH page, and then sorted out which ones I really posted and which were made by those pesky impersonators. Well, whoooooooeeeee, there were still quite a few of my messages with my obsolete e-mail addresses on them. So, next I decided to check out whether I might have other Ancestry accounts. I logged out of my current account and then clicked on LOGIN and then clicked on FORGOT YOUR PASSWORD. I sent for all account information under all e-mail addresses for which I can currently receive mail that could possibly have an account associated with them. I then logged in under each one, one at a time, and updated the MY PROFILE information just like I indicated above. In the process, I learned that I had accounts I was not aware of that needed updating. Then I did another search and found, dang it all, there were still some of my old messages with outdated addresses -- ones where I can no longer receive mail like [email protected] and [email protected] For those accounts, I needed to contact Ancestry Customer Support to have all account information mailed to me -- I made certain that I listed each e-mail address that might have had an account associated with it. I found Ancestry Customer Support by going here: http://ancestry.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ancestry.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php? When that information arrived I logged in under EACH account and updated the e-mail information for each one. In each case, I made certain to update the address in BOTH places under MY PROFILE -- E-mail and Post E- mail. Did you know that it is actually the Post E-mail address that shows up on the messages and fixes them as displayed on the boards? Now we were getting somewhere, but, then I still found some messages from years ago that had old non-working e-mail addresses on them, including my old office e-mail account. Now, listen closely to The King, because here is where things start to get a bit complicated. Uh huh. If you are an old-timer at using the RootsWeb Message Boards and you have posted messages say prior to about mid-2001 when registering and logging in was first started, or if you posted messages without logging in after the creation of the current RootsWeb/Ancestry combined Message Boards, you need to make note of which old e-mail addresses appear on the old posts. If you are like me, you might even have posted messages on both the old RootsWeb/GenConnect Message Board system and the old FamilyHistory Message Boards at Ancestry.com. If so, you might have old addresses on messages that were transferred over from both sets of boards to the current combined RootsWeb/Ancestry Message Boards -- and they all need to be updated -- if you want your cousins to find you. Now pay attention because this is the really weird part. To fix this mess, you need to create a NEW registration/account for each OLD address (yeah, you heard me right -- for the addresses that are no longer working) listing your NEW account information exactly as it appeared on the OLD messages you want to update. Then login using each of the new accounts with the OLD information on them and click on MY PROFILE and update each one. This should update your e-mail address on all of your old messages on any of the RootsWeb/Ancestry boards no matter how or when you posted them. So don't find yourself out of luck like a hound dog that ain't never caught a rabbit. Check today to be certain all of YOUR e-mail addresses are current on YOUR RootsWeb Message Board posts. Don't be cruel -- pay attention to "The King," and, oh yeah, stay off my blue suede shoes.

Dear Listers: That was a great piece posted by Cathy! As a Board Administrator for Rootsweb/Ancestry I appreciated the humorous way used to explain what is pretty dry information. At some point in time, the Computer Interest Group will cover "How to more effectively use the Boards, Lists and Archives of Rootsweb/Ancestry." If you are interested in learning more on this topic, stay tuned for notice of that meeting! Happy Trails, Lauren List Admin, MarinGenSoc-L and others... Founding Member, Marin County Genealogical Society Computer Interest Group