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Email Groups and Queries
Home » Genealogy » Sources for Genealogy Research - Online Information » Email Groups and QueriesPosted by Your Guide on July 6, 2006 9:43 PM
Email groups are invaluable if you are researching a common surname such as Thomas, Smith, or Davis. However, even uncommon name researchers can band together, form an email group, and use the group site to keep everyone in the group informed of any information a member of the group obtains.
Email groups are set up by at least one researcher and others who are researching that name or related families will be invited to join the group and participate in the group's research. When one member of the group posts anything to the site, that post goes out in an email to every member of the group at the same time. Members can reply to posts by replying to the email and those replies will also go out to every member of the group. This feature is especially valuable if a second researcher has related or even conflicting information. When the additional information is posted, such as a correction, every member of the group is updated at the same time and no member is forgotten or left out. In group research the way to avoid confusion is to make sure every member has the same information that all the others in the group have.
Another online resource for genealogy researchers is the hosted query page within some web sites. Queries are questions that one researcher posts to a site hoping that another researcher will have some or all of the information they seek. An example of a good query would read like this:
Surname: Jones
Searching for the descendants of Eli and Sarah Smith Jones. Eli was born June 12, 1854 in Nashville, Tennessee. He died January 21, 1901 in San Francisco, California. Sarah Smith was born ?? and married Eli around 1874 in the Republic of Texas. Sarah Smith Jones died in San Francisco, California before around 1920. It is believed that Eli and Sarah Smith Jones' descendants may still be living in and around San Francisco. Please reply to: jjjones@pretendemailaddress.com.
After the query is posted, other researchers, and hopefully a descendant of Eli & Sarah, will contact the fictitious J. J. Jones with information that will be helpful to him/her.
Related Articles
- Free Genealogy Sites
- Paid Genealogy Sites
- Email Groups and Queries
- Genealogy and Historical Societies with online records