Thanks to all of you for responding. It has given me a little lift but also pain to know that this has happened to many others. Wish I knew how to stop it. Last night about eight o clock I tried to access AOL and my password was invalid and it gave me a number to call. I got through to them and was informed that over nine hundred newsletters went out in my name and asked did I do this. I don't have this many in my address book or on all my group lists. I then checked my sent mail and had about twenty e mails that were listed. None of these were in my address book. These started at 10:25:35 AM EST and the last one was at 3:03:11 P. M. EST. I do not go into chat rooms and I haven't download anything in over four weeks or more. I send out very few queries to the lists that I belong to. 99% of my computer work is genealogy and about 1% to writing messages to my children. All the rest is of line. My computer is clean of viruses and I have had no problems with it. This is indeed a mystery to me. I am trying to send these twenty or so people a message explaining what has happened but I have no record of the others. These addressees that I have are the ones starting with P and R. I am a senior citizen with a clean heart and a Clean mouth and I do enjoy researching my family tree and meeting new kin, kissing kin and friends. History is my calling and now someone who is a thief, a mongrel, and to me is no better than a terrorist has tried to smear my name. And to that person I say the following: I shall pray for you for you are indeed in need of prayer. To try to steal a person, s good name is worse than stealing his money. May God have mercy on you for the hurt and damage you cause other people. I want to thank everyone again who has responded and I thank the list Manager for allowing me to send this E. Mail. For indeed we all need to be aware what can and does happen when we least expect it. May God Bless all of you Pat

----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 8:20 AM Subject: [NCROOTS] stolen password Please forgive my intrusion. My wife, (Hope Stanley), asked me to skan her e-mail and forward anything important while she is away. I read of your plight and can not urge you strongly enough to go to the following web site and download the "Free" Firewall that will prevent anyone accessing your PC without your knowledge. After I had installed it on our two computers I was absolutely astonished at the frequency with which a notice would pop up on the screen, notifying me that someone was attempting to gain access to my computer. It happened so frequently that I finally set it to just block the attempt without inturrupting me to give notice. The URL is http://www.zonealarm.com/ Look down the left-hand margin until you see: "ZoneAlarm FREE Download" This free program has totally stopped free access to my PC and the often major problems I was having as a result of it. Respectfully, Rev. Charles Stanley Winfall, N.C.