Genealogy-Geneology.net - Mailing Lists

Mailing Lists

Mailing lists can be a goldmine of information for genealogy researchers. In a mailing list, a single e-mail address is established as the administration address. Any e-mail messages sent to that address are forwarded to everyone who subscribes to the mailing list. On a popular list, you can receive hundreds of e-mails in a single day.

Key Points to Remember

Some mailing lists are administered by humans, others by computers.
To subscribe to a human maintained list, just e-mail your request to the list administrator and they will add you to the list. The administrator's address is typically made up of the list name, followed by -request, then the domain name (i.e. samplelist-request@sampledomain.com). To unsubscribe, send a message to that same address requesting your e-mail address be removed from the list.
Computer administered mailing lists are subscribed to in two different, yet similar, ways. Refer to the instructions that accompany each list description. However, in general, to subscribe, send an e-mail with the following information in the body of the message:
subscribe listname your e-mail address
(i.e. subscribe samplelist-request@sampledomain.com nwagner@wagner.com)

To unsubscribe to a computer maintained list, send the following:
unsubscribe listname
or with some lists
signoff listname

After subscribing to a mailing list you will most likely receive a welcome message from the list owner. This is an important email to read as it contains operating and contact information.

Most mailing lists have two email addresses which serve two separate functions. One will handle subscribe/unsubscribe requests, the other is for posting your messages to.

There are moderated and un-moderated lists
- a moderated list involves a human filtering the messages to make sure only appropriate messages are received by subscribers.
- an un-moderated list involves no intervention - all messages posted are sent to subscribers.

You can receive list messages in three different ways. These are mail mode, index mode and digest mode.
Mail Mode - you receive each message as a separate email.
Index Mode - an index is sent to you listing the subject and author of all messages. You can then specify which messages you would like to receive.
Digest Mode - separate emails are sent together as one large email. This cuts down the number of individual emails sent.

The "Netiquette" that applies to newsgroups also applies to mailing lists.

- Stay on-topic.
- If you have something to discuss that is only of interest to a particular person, then carry out this discussion using email rather than broadcasting it to the entire list.
- If you are hesitant about posting to a mailing list you can "lurk". By lurking your participation only involves watching how everything works. By observing what is acceptable and what is not, you can avoid making mistakes when the time comes for you to make a post.
- Each mailing list will have it's own rules, make sure you follow them.

If you would like to start your own mailing list visit Yahoo Groups. This is a free mailing list service that offers all the tools necessary to run a mailing list of your own. Click Here for more information.

The internet has thousands of FREE genealogy related mailing lists. There are location lists, surname lists, national lists, state and county lists, international lists, geneology software lists, and lists for different research techniques.

Mailing List Sources

RootsWeb provides an extensive index of over 22,000 geneology mailing lists. It also hosts the largest and oldest genealogy mailing list with over 10,000 subscribers (Click here to subscribe).

You will see on the home page an extensive index of surname, USA, and international mailing lists.

Those new to computers or genealogy can subscribe to the GEN-NEWBIE List.

SurnameGuide.com

SurnameGuide.com lists thousands of surname-related mailing lists.

You will see a link to "Surname Lists" on the top left-hand side of the homepage.

Genealogy Resources on the Internet

This website has one of the most extensive and well maintained mailing list indexes on the net.

The following is a list of mailing list categories you will find on this site (Follow the links to view the mailing lists in each category).

Make sure you visit the SURNAME section. If you subscribe to a mailing list that is dedicated to researching your surname, it is quite likely you will find someone who is researching the same person/persons as you. You could have information that person needs and vice-versa. This is how many people build there family tree through the internet.