Just a word of caution for those of you who may not know - - - A personal email address can be found by clicking the blue link next to the author's name. This brings up a page showing the email address in a bitmap format and the authors posting history. Rootsweb and Ancestry do it this way because email addresses cannot be "harvested" by spammers in the bitmap format. You have to be on the message Boards themselves to do this; you won't find it within mailing lists from those boards. Messages arriving to your email through the mailing lists include the senders address because they are private emails, not a public forum. http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board <http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=localities.northam.usa.s tates.vermont.counties.rutland> &r=rw&p=localities.northam.usa.states.vermont.counties.rutland Messages posted to this board also appear in the "VTRUTLAN-L at Rootsweb com" mailing list. http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board <http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=localities.northam.usa.s tates.newyork.counties.washington> &r=rw&p=localities.northam.usa.states.newyork.counties.washington Messages posted to this board also appear in the "NYWASHIN-L at Rootsweb com " mailing list. If you post your actual email address in the message itself, it is fair game for spammers. Message boards are a favorite hunting ground for these people. If you have posted your email address within an actual message, you may have noticed an influx of spam. Even though email programs have spam filters, I personally hate to see it appear even in my "junk" folder! You could also use the actual words "at dot com" or "at dot net" never using the "@" symbol. Carol Glen Allen, VA Scanned with Symantec Anti-Virus