[or-roots] Advice for Newbies that the rest of should remember

[Sue Steward]

Thanks, Les.  I'd say Amen to all that.  Particularly that they provide the
information they already know or think, gives a much better starting place
just a name and possibly a county in Oregon but you have no idea what time
frame you are looking for.

Sue

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leslie Chapman" <reedsportchapmans at verizon.net>
To: "Oregon List" <or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us>
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 8:15 PM
Subject: [or-roots] Advice for Newbies that the rest of should remember


> First of all, if you are having Puter problems, some of us on the list are
> fairly competent in that area and feel free to throw a plea for help out
> with the proviso that you will probably have to be contacted off list;
>
> Just as an example, many of you may not be aware that though your posts to
> the list are filtered through a computer at Or-roots, and in some formats
> the sender's email address doesn't appear in the body of the email, many
of
> us can access your personal email address that way.
>
> For the record mine is; reedsportchapmans at verizon.net
>
> Presumptious of me wasn't it?
>
> Now as to the how to's of posting to the list;
>
> We be a pretty relaxed group, BUT the more information you can provide up
> front, the better we can help you. Often I spend a couple of hours chasing
> somebodie's kin down in the census, only to find out they have all that
> info. Or think they do any way, sometimes you get fooled, you find a
husband
> and wife with a couple of kids whose given names all match the family you
> want and they are in the right place at the right time and they are WRONG.
I
> especially find that in my Melvin line; of course when every generation
has
> to perpetuate Jonathon, John, Mary, Elizabeth etc that makes it easier to
> get confused.
>
> Sorry, don't let me get side tracked like that, we'll be here all night!
>
> I bring the relaxed up because a lot of lists won't even post queries that
> don't follow a RIGID protocol; SURNAME ALL CAPS, given name, location of
> birth, time of birth, location of marriage, time, death same way YADDA
> YADDA,.
>
> My point here is if you come on and just ask for a person by first and
last
> name and say they were in Oregon, chances are you can get hundreds of
wrong
> answers; so it is better to start off with most of that RIGID info, I
> personally detest the all caps surname convention and we certainly pretty
> much ignore it here, but the more information provided up front, the less
> time we spend reinventing the wheel.
>
> The biggest crime we ALL consistently commit here is to not keep our
subject
> relevant to our email. The biggest joke was the night I came on to
chastise
> some folks for that and forgot to change my subject line!
>
> The most important thing we all need to remember is that just about any
time
> you spend some time helping another person with THEIR genealogy, you are
> quite likely to be rewarded in some way by finding something to help with
> your own.
>
> And we are a pretty resourceful bunch, sometimes we are slow to respond to
> peoples needs, sometimes we see the same post two or three times before
> somebody decides to play around with it, I know I blew off someone's post
> here a couple years back because I didn't think I could help them, next
time
> they posted it I decided to see what I could come up with and found some
> really great web site that not only answered their question but many of my
> own.
>
> Sometimes we be just tooooooo busy, I haven't had a real day off, between
> family gatherings etc I have been running for almost a month now.
>
> Les C
>
>
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