I am interested in hearing whether and how you have used queries from old genealogical publications such as newsletters, and if so whether you found them to be valuable? If yes, why were they valuable? Can you give some examples of how they helped? On a wider but related note, should old society newsletters be archived or thrown in the trash? If your society or library keeps some but not all such publications, what criteria do you use for deciding what to keep and what to dispose of? Connie Sheets Phoenix, AZ

Connie, we just went through this at our local Genealogical Society. We categorized them primarily into three groups: 1. Society newsletters (local meeting news, what has been added to the library, etc) - In nearly every case these were put into the recycle bin. We did keep a few current ones for our local region (several surrounding counties). 2. Society journals and magazines (articles on research techniques, published records, indexes, etc.) - We kept all for our local area. Most of those outside our local region (the rest of the state and the US) were offered to members for free, although very few members were interested in any of them. We tried to donate them to various libraries and no one wanted them. Some publications were kept if we felt they had unusual content or we had members who actually used them. Those making the decisions were genealogists familiar with online resources as well as local, state and national repositories for particular areas they knew well. 3. Published genealogies (such as the NGSQ) - we kept all of these. Our reason to purge was to make space for more useful items (currently in boxes) such as reference books, county histories, more computers, and the like. It was a controversial project but a necessary one. Many years of our own publication were scanned and are in the process of being uploaded to our website. As far as queries from old publications, I have never had any luck with these at all. Where I have had tremendous success is Rootsweb mail lists. Queries posted there have yielded the most amazing results. Phyllis -----Original Message----- From: "Connie Sheets via" [ [email protected] ]( mailto:[email protected] ) Subject: [TGF] Old Genealogical Newsletters and Queries "...I am interested in hearing whether and how you have used queries from old genealogical publications such as newsletters, and if so whether you found them to be valuable?... On a wider but related note, should old society newsletters be archived or thrown in the trash?..."