I an SICK to death of this backbiting crap......The original thing I did to OFFEND Cheryl was to send this email post to the list, in an attempt to try to help someone who appeared to be starting out on their research....that was my CRIME.... to try to help someone. She fired me off a most nasty personal email, saying I had insulted her, who did I think I was, bla, bla bla, and followed up with a list with a crack about my 'advice'........ my offending email to her........ "I would suggest you talk with your father about his family. Surely he would know where his father died and when, or at least the year. The year would enable you to contact the county where his father died and obtain a death certificate, which would give you valuable family info, such as -where he and even his parents were born, etc. Then, with the full date of death you could also obtain filmed newspapers from the Ohio Historic Center, in Columbus, through interlibrary loan...... searching for an obituary, which also contain family data. Generally, what you find about one generation may well lead you to the preceding one, with things to follow up on." her follow-up....with crack; I want to thank Mary and Kitty for the information that you sent me. I also heard from Robert. I am very grateful for the help. I will be sending you the information and picture of Mary E. Daniels Thomas. To Sandra, I have the information I need. Without the advice. This indicated to me, that she had gotten answers to her questions, that perhaps might help others, and in the spirit of these lists should be sent to all and not just an individual..... Is this offensive? " The idea behind these genealogical lists is to share information, and this means sending it to everyone on the list, rather than just to the individual. One never knows who will be helped by information asked for by someone else, and I'm sure we've all found clues, etc in posts that weren't directed to us. The list postings are also archived, so that folks can search the archives at a later date, and find info that might be helpful in their research. Thus, it's a good idea to send genealogical information to the list in general, and personal thanks to the individual. ..none of us need to read personal emails to others, but sure could use the data..." for this OFFENDING info, above, Mary sent... "In response to this message from Sandra Ferguson. You made this statement about always posting to the list and you emailed Cheryl Enyart with some comments that she was not happy with. She is my cousin and I emailed her without posting to the list but was told in the following email to make sure I post to the list. Why didn't you post your comments Sandra? My at least were polite. She has decided to leave the list after such a short time because of the rude remarks you made to her. This list should be to help people not to correct their email etiquette. I will never post again. I am not interested in receiving insults in my inbox and then being told to put my comments on the list. As I have seen you are not the list master so maybe you should stop trying to run the list and let us poor folks find each other and give genuine help out here to others. Mary" "Mary, would you like me to send you the RUDE emails from Cheryl? All because I tried to send her a helping email? In answer to the above email I sent; " I'm afraid you misunderstood, for these lists are NOT for personal comments, as between individuals - those pointlessly fill everyone else's inboxes and are archived for no good reason. Why on earth would I send something of this sort to everyone on the list? What SHOULD be shared is information...... any sort of genealogical data that could help others, which is the point of these lists.......and, if the information is send only to an individual who requested it, what a waste of 'good stuff' that might help another. Most of this is just common sense. If we wish to get others to answer our queries, then we want to make it clear what, or who our posts are about......ditto when answering the query of others. Many folks just give a cursory glance at the subject and delete it if it doesn't appear to be of interest, or isn't clear, so the best way to get others to read our queries is to make it clear what they concern. By the same token, as I said before, many people, just like me, browse the various list archives, looking for things of interest......if there is something I think might be of interest, then I click on the subject and read it, but if it has one of those useless subjects like roll call, etc, it gets passed up. Thus, whether the post is for our own query or to share information, the better the subject, the more likely it is that others will read it....which, is what we're all after." I would like ANYONE to point out where I said ANYTHING that wasn't helpful information on how to get the most out of these lists....but, believe me, no more......I' have HAD it! I'm outta here. To those who have written, I will get you out the info on Query writing, etc, as requested, along with those sites I've collected that may prove useful.