I know that many on these lists have been around for eons and probably do not need to read my suggestion here, but for those list users relatively new to using lists a reminder... Please remember to either quote your message in your replys or at least the significant portion of the message. You don't need to quote an entire six message string with all the responses, just enough so that the receiver and any other readers will know what your are talking about. Recently, I received a message that simply said "Do you know if your line was ever in Johnson County, Arkansas?" No quotation of my message, no reference as to where they got my message, no reference as to which family they were speaking of. I finally learned that they had seen a post on a county site that I had placed over two years ago regarding a line of my family that I do not research much. Lately, I have begun to receive a number of these messages with "open ended" questions regarding something I may have posted, but with no quote of my original message. You cannot assume that the submission of information by a user, is either his only submission of information nor his only email correspondence with folks on the internet. I for one make occassional submissions to the lists, but when I do so, it seems that I am in a sort of "active" mode and find that I am submitting several DIFFERENT itmes to several possible lists. I also, have posted many, many items or queries to various county query pages...some of those posts are over three years old and I have long since forgot about the posts. Also, I am in constant contact with people of all sorts regarding information regarding both genealogy and non-genealogy topics. On average, I send about 2 dozen messages per day to somebody somewhere. At any given time I may have a dozen or more "ongoing" different topics of interest that I am communicating about over the internet usually with people that I have just come into contact with. When someone sends me a question without either quoting my original message or at least mentioning the information that I was offering in my message, then I have no earthly idea what you may be speaking of. I'm guessing that I am way below average in the amount of communication I conduct via the 'net as well. I recieve about 150+ messages per day...I know of some that receive as much as 600 messages per day. They certainly can't begin to try to figure out what such an ambiguous message may be about and you may just not get an answer back. Just make sure that you quote the message in your reply or at least the important portion of the message so that your contact will know of what you are asking. Take care and good rootin'... -- Don Watson mailto:dwatson@texas.net County Coordinator, TXGenWeb Page for Blanco County http://lonestar.texas.net/~dwatson/blanco