I don't usually respond to these but here's a few points: These mailing lists are text based. Any formatting you do is removed by the Rootsweb mailer before sending it out. This means that bold, italic, etc. can't go through. BUT it also plays havoc with tabs that would make any table look nice otherwise. Thus, what looked great when you sent it out, looks like poo when someone else gets it. Second, your margins when you compose the email are probably different than mine. Thus, the lines will break in awkward places when you read it. Often, just maximizing your email window will help this but sometimes not. In addition, in text based email, I do believe it is standard that it replaces a "soft" word wrap end of line with a "hard" return (as if you had pressed ENTER at the end of the line). This puts a line break where you otherwise wouldn't want it. If the information is important to me, I copy it to my favorite word processor and clean it up in a couple quick sweeps of find/replace. Third, putting a tree at the bottom of the email can be a great service to later researchers that do a search on the mailing list archives. They might find their long lost ancestor. However, always point out important names/dates/places that you are really interested in searching for rather than expecting others to figure it out on their own. That is, put a summary (with names/dates/places) of your quest first, tree last. Oh, and keep the number of generations reasonable. Edit out the decendants of those family members you aren't as concerned with. Forth, and the golden rule of message boards and the like, never, ever, ever, diss/flame someone when you feel that they have messed up. All of us were newbies at one time. All of us make mistakes. There's no excuse to shut down someone's interest in their family because of your percieved problems with their request. Personally, I thought it was fine. Don't need a hug-fest here but mutual respect for our quests is always appreciated. Delanie