Sandra, Believe me, Sandra, I share your frustrations. I get requests like that every single day. I have found it much less aggravating to send a standard "form" response indicating that I cannot do research on Joe Smith if I don't have dates and locations. I also explain the limitations of the books people are hoping will have information. If I get a polite apology in return with the appropriate information, I'll go the extra mile for them. Otherwise, they simply get "Sorry, but I can't help you, try such and such." This happened just the other day, and with a simply reply from the requester, I had enough to go on to check sources other than just the original lookup request and got the individual back several generations. Not only that, but I also got a huge thank you and additional information that she subsequently found on her own as a result of the info I had provided. Bear in mind that many people making requests haven't got a clue what they're doing and are often taking a shot in the dark. In addition, the web pages that show lookup volunteers aren't set up to describe the content and/or dates of the published sources we're using. I've had to disappoint dozens and dozens of people who want information for 19th century church records because the Early Churches of Delaware County/Chester County are primarily Quaker and cover 1681-1800. Rather than getting ourselves all hot and bothered, since this appears to be an ongoing source of frustration both to the requestor and the researcher, maybe we should take the initiative and propose that the Rootsweb volunteer pages could be modified to include descriptions of the books offered for look-ups. While it might not eliminate all the problems, it might eliminate enough to make our volunteerism a little less painful. Anybody know how we can make such a suggestion? Karen Greim Mullian booboopies@aol.com In a message dated Tue, 25 Jul 2000 8:51:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Sandra Ferguson" <ferg@intelos.net> writes: << Did you all hear that noise?......it was me, pulling my hair out! Here is yet another query I received this afternoon.....her second email indicated that she felt this was sufficient, that I was nasty and she'd fix me and take her query elsewhere.........rats, right? I can't tell you how many emails I have had from other volunteers, indicating that the same things happen to them, all the time, and how maddening it is! Too bad there isn't a query form that people could print out, and follow, when asking for help....I just don't know what makes it so tough? I suppose if everyone always included, full name, occurrence interested in(birth, death, marriage, will), geographic location and DATES, all would be "right with the world"....or at least the world of volunteering! S. , >I'm ........ from Tn. and could you be so nice as to see if there is a Round,Rownd, or Rowen-Rowan will listed in early Chester Co. or a Maroe Will." >> > ==== PACHESTE Mailing List ==== Check out other counties in PA! http://libertynet.org/~gencap/pacounties.html >>