980805 ROOTSWEB REVIEW: Genealogical Data Cooperative Weekly News Vol. 1, No. 8, 5 August 1998; Circulation: 196,000+ researchers Copyright (c) 1998 RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative Editors: Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG * * * * * CONTENTS: New at RootsWeb; Connecting through RootsWeb; Geek Speak; New Mailing Lists; New Web Sites; Behind the Scenes at RootsWeb: Excerpts from the Staff Diary; Does Ultimate Family Tree Have Roots?; Humor; Reprint Policy; Authors' Guidelines; Unsubscribe Instructions * * * * * NEW AT ROOTSWEB The AUGUST ROOTSWEB SURNAME LIST (RSL), with 452,150 surnames submitted by 63,603 researchers, can now be searched at RootsWeb . There are 21,317 NEW SURNAMES in this release. Besides the search engine for the RSL, RootsWeb now has an online form so you can easily SUBMIT YOUR SURNAMES for inclusion in the RSL. * * * The JULY ROOTSWEB STATISTICS ARE IN. In July 1998, RootsWeb experienced one of its largest single-month increases in load with folks using many of our services 25-33% more than in June. We're not quite sure why that happened, but we speculate it's because we've been adding new features and upgrading our servers as fast as contributions allow. We also suspect that the new RootsWeb Review e-zine may be helping folks find new parts of RootsWeb. Here are the statistics on our July operations: o 2,975 independent Web sites, including USGenWeb, the USGenWeb Archives, WorldGenWeb, the ROOTS-L State Pages, the International Internet Genealogical Society (IIGS), the Olive Tree, and Cyndi's List o 50,245,222 total Web hits of which 13,608,736 were HTML pages; 6,879,675 were cgi-bin database searches and such; and 29,568,584 were graphics (gifs, jpegs, etc.). o 995,249 FTP file downloads from the USGenWeb Archives and the ROOTS-L Library. o 3,969 independent locality and surname mailing lists with searchable archives. o Thanks to a neat hack by Tim Pierce, we know we shipped 99,934,614 pieces of e-mail to our mailing lists. o 60,000 alt.g and s.g.* Usenet News articles to hosts on three continents. o Approximately 830,304,000,000 bytes in total. As always, RootsWeb remains supported by user contributions, which are greatly appreciated. Folks who would like to become a RootsWeb Member, Sponsor, Donor, or Patron (the cost is very modest and you can become a Member easily by using your credit card and our new secure server) are invited to visit: Support from the Internet genealogical community is crucial to RootsWeb's operation. Right now, we could be hosting many more Web sites and mailing lists as well as providing many further services to the community, if only we had the resources to do so. Thanks to Palladium Interactive , publishers of the superb Ultimate Family Tree software and to all RootsWeb Members, Sponsors, Donors, and Patrons for their support of RootsWeb; and thanks to everyone who participates in RootsWeb. * * * RHONDA McCLURE JOINS ROOTSWEB STAFF. McCLURE, a professional genealogist, is an old-timer in the online genealogy world. She has led the genealogy interest groups on GEnie and MSN and is the author of many technical and genealogy columns and publications. * * * INTERNATIONAL INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY (IIGS). The August, 1998 issue of the IIGS Newsletter is available at . This issue contains articles and Web links for more information about disenchanted Australian gold miners who in 1854 took a stand at the Eureka Stockade; the American Revolution; China and the Boxer Rebellion; the French Revolution; a history in progress about the 260 residents of Milam County, Texas who gave their lives for their country from World War I through the Vietnam War; a review of Reunions 5, described as "the program of choice for serious Macintosh genealogists," and genealogy humor. * * * OBITUARY DAILY TIMES . Visit the Web site to search the database of more than two million entries indexed in the last four years and to learn how to become a contributor of obituaries indexed from your local newspaper. To subscribe to the mailing list, either visit the Web site and click the option to subscribe to the GEN-OBIT list, or send your SUBSCRIBE message to . NOTE: If you have a Juno account, instead of the foregoing, send your request to be added to the mailing list to . * * * * * CONNECTING THROUGH ROOTSWEB: Thanks for sharing your stories! Warren Sadler of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada writes: I recently received a generous offer from a new CANADIAN-ROOTS subscriber in response to a query I had made more than a year earlier. She'd found my note in the LIST ARCHIVES. While the issue I was trying to solve had been long cleared up, I included in my thank you note a casual inquiry. In 1821 my ancestors settled in the area in question, then just opened, and consisted of a man and his seven sons. Because of the size of this family and their early presence, they married into a lot of lines. So I asked if she had any SADLERs in her tree. She said "no" and included a qualifier: "Unless they were among the STEWARTs or the TAYLORs." Since these very common surnames are included in my tree, I sent back three or four relevant generations of a SADLER line that included both. Her "stunned" response -- one of the people that I listed was her great- grandfather! Sow and ye shall reap! My fourth cousin, twice removed, now has this line back to a SADLER fifth great-grandfather, and we both have new and helpful contacts. * * * Margaret Anne O'Leary writes: Here is a success story with a wide geographic base. My husband's parents and family emigrated from Ireland/UK to Australia in 1966 leaving cousins in Ireland and England. A great-uncle, Ned FARRELLY, had emigrated from Ireland to the USA in 1929, had been home to visit Ireland in 1938, and not much more was known after that. Through leaving the name Farrelly on the list I recently had contact from his daughter in Florida and can now reunite my mum-in-law with her first cousin who was born after the family lost touch. * * * ROOTS SURNAME LIST AIDS SEARCH FOR 1836 EMIGRATION DESCENDANTS by Ken Light c/o ACS, P.O. Box 386 Dhahran Airport 31932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia In 1836 the parishes of Downton, Standlynch, and Whiteparish in Wiltshire, England were in the middle of a severe depression. Parish officials sent a large group of unemployed paupers, comprising 10% of the parish population, to Canada. In 1996, I began searching to find details of the story. The parish had lost all records except for a few references in church minutes. After 160 years, the emigration had become a folk memory. County officials and records had little to offer. I then decided to take my quest to Britain's massive Public Record Office, whose 96 miles of shelving hold the records of the birth, rise and fall of the British Empire. In short, I discovered a paper trail that stretched through British imperial records in the ministry of health, the colonial office, the board of trade, and yet to be confirmed -- the exchequer (ministry of finance). The parish chartered a ship, the "King William," to carry 279 people to Quebec. They left from the Portsmouth area April 7, 1836 and arrived in Quebec the week of May 28th. It was the largest British parish-sponsored emigration in 1836 according to a report tabled in the House of Commons in 1837. One year ago, I found a list of the names of the paupers and their families, and decided that I would like to contact as many descendants of the group as possible. One small problem, I live in Saudi Arabia in an isolated area on the Arabian Gulf. We have only had e-mail for the past year and a half, and at times it is shaky. There is no public access to the Internet yet. I have been able to send articles to genealogical publications in Canada and the United Kingdom via e-mail, and they have been published, and I have encountered descendants from some of the families, including relatives! Enter the ROOTS SURNAME LIST (RSL). Since starting to use it, I have been able to get one confirmed descendant of Thomas and Sarah Pretty, information and leads as to where some of the group settled in parts of Upper Canada, and I am currently investigating with another person the possibility that she is a descendant of William Mussel. And through the list I am uncovering a lot of people whose families left Downton at various times in the past 400 years. I am optimistic that as the list grows I will find more descendants and clues in this case. I hope to amass a genealogy and history of the entire emigration that will result in the publication of at least one book. But I have seen enough written records in London on this that I could write a tremendous historical novel, that includes members of the British aristocracy, ambitious colonial office officials, the parson, local church wardens anxious to rid themselves of the poor and a group of 100 unemployed men. I believe that they, or their parents, were forced off the land by the same aristocracy that later chartered a ship to send them to Upper Canada. I really have it in my mind to start with Downton, but eventually expand it into an Upper Canada immigrant Web site, but that is off in the future. I think you are doing a valuable service to the genealogy community. * * * Steve Hoog writes: My own family search got a huge boost in early summer 1997, when a previously unknown cousin saw my plea for help with HOOGs and replied. Fortunately, or possibly unfortunately, he had most of the family going back to Baden in 1800. So much for my research. But, the biggest thrill came just a couple of months ago. My wife's family had a "missing" male (my wife's great-great- grandfather). We had nothing except a marriage license with initials only, and census records saying he was born in Ohio. After posting to several places within the RootsWeb system, we were contacted by, as have so many others, a previously unknown cousin who had everything we needed to get back on track. A full year of frustration and lack of motivation to continue, ended with a short e-mail. Thank you, RootsWeb! * * * * * GEEK SPEAK: Dale "Doc" Schneider explained: "Unix boxen run Unix as their base OS (operating system). A PC is a generic term meaning Personal Computer. A PC can run anything be it a Mac PC or Intel PC (commonly refered to as IBM Compatible), which will run a variety of OS's (Windows. DOS, several flavors on Un*x." Dr. Leverich ("Dr. B") added: "RootsWeb's servers don't have a lot in common with consumer PCs. The newer ones are rack-mounted, don't have their own monitors or keyboards, and use industrial-grade hardware that you don't find in Office Depot computers like RAID controllers and watchdog boards. "Before someone asks, 'RAID' means something like 'Redundant Array of Inexpensive (Ha!) Drives.' It's a special disk controller that smears data over (typically) five different drives, and if any one drive fails it can be reconstructed by redundant data on the other four drives. RAID arrays are much faster and more secure than standard disks. "A 'watchdog' board is a specialized piece of hardware that expects the machine it's in to ping it once a minute. If the machine misses three pings, the watchdog board robotically presses the reset button and reboots the machine." Doc, Tim Pierce, and Dr. B collaborated on the following entry: REPTAWD = "RootsWeb's Evil Plot to Achieve World Domination." This is usually meant as a joke, but is used by the staff as a shorthand for RootsWeb's specific plans to bring more free resources online for Internet genealogists. (Note that it is pronounced "rep-twad," not "rep-todd." This fools people into thinking that we are discussing something innocuous, and lulls them into a false sense of security.) * * * * * MAILING LISTS: To subscribe or unsubscribe from any RootsWeb mailing list, send an e-mail message with only the word SUBSCRIBE (or UNSUBSCRIBE) in the subject and the body of the message to [name of list]-L-request@rootsweb.com (for mail mode) or to [name of list]-D-request@rootsweb.com (for digest mode). For example, if you wish to be added to the mailing list for LDS-Daughters, a list for female descendants of LDS (Mormon) pioneers send your SUBSCRIBE message to: LDS-Daughters-L-request@rootsweb.com For an index to most user mailing lists hosted by RootsWeb, visit . (PLEASE NOTE: Although all of the new mailing lists mentioned in RootsWeb Review are "live," it might be a few days before they appear on the ~maillist site.) * * * NEW SURNAME MAILING LISTS: APPLEGATE BLAKELY BOATRIGHT (includes BOATWRIGHT) BOWER (includes BAUER) BRIXEY COSSEY COWING (a subsidiary of the Cowen line) DAVENPORT DEARDORFF (includes DIEDORFF) FAILE (includes FAIL, FAILE and FAILS) FERREE (includes FEHREE, FERRY, FERY, FAIRY, FORRY, FURRY, FIRRY, etc. All Soundex F600 [F*R*] welcomed) FORCE GADDIS GEER GESELL GRAYSON HARRADEN (includes HARRISON) HOGAN JUNGCK KOBERSTEIN (includes COVERSTONE, etc.) LAFFERTY (includes LAFERTY, LAVERTY) LORDS LYKE (especially from New York State) MCFADDIN (includes MCFADDEN) NEIBAUR (includes NEUBAUER) SHORTRIDGE SKILES (includes SKYLES) STAUFFACHER STRICKLAND (includes STRICKLIN) STRICKLER (includes STICKLER) TALIAFERRO TALLENT WELBAUM (includes WELLBAUM. For people researching the names Welbaum/Wellbaum and the ancestors and descendants of Carl Ludewig Wallbaum and Mary Magdalena Kneisly.) NEW REGIONAL MAILING LISTS IRELAND: MAYO -- County Mayo, Ireland NORTHERN IRELAND NIR-DOWN -- County Down, Northern Ireland U.S.A.: FLCITRUS -- Citrus County, Florida GADEKALB -- DeKalb County, Georgia IAPLYMOU -- Plymouth County, Iowa LASTLAND -- St. Landry Parish, Louisiana NCSTANLY -- Stanly County, North Carolina TNCANNON -- Cannon County, Tennessee TNWILSON -- Wilson County, Tennessee TXFRANKL -- Franklin County, Texas TXMORRIS -- Morris County, Texas WIEAUCLA -- Eau Claire County, Wisconsin WIKEWAUN -- Kewaunee County, Wisconsin NEW MAILING LISTS (ETHNIC, GENERAL INTEREST, MISCELLANEOUS) AL-AfricaAmer -- AlGenWeb African American Genealogy in Alabama. LDS-Daughters -- A list for female descendants of LDS (Mormon) pioneers. MOMS_N_ME-ROOTS -- A list to aid moms of all ages, but especially those with young children, in researching their family. Also will welcome any ideas for helping mothers teach their children about their heritage and the importance of family research. TX-Landmark -- The TxGenWeb Project: "Texas Landmarks and Vanished Communities." * * * * * NEW WEB SITES: Some of these might not yet be accessible. If one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or a week. > (the ~[tilde] before the name is required) will work for most of the following. If not, you will find most of them at the USGenWeb Project or the WorldGenWeb Project . For example, if you wish to visit the Sampson County, North Carolina Web site, visit: AUSTRALIA ausvgs -- Genealogical Society of Victoria CANADA oncochra -- Ontario, Cochrane District U.S.A. azgila -- Gila County, Arizona flclay -- Clay County, Florida flgsbc -- Broward County, Florida Genealogical Society galibert -- Liberty County, Georgia ilmorgan -- Morgan County, Illinois kyoldham -- Oldham County, Kentucky moadair -- Adair County, Missouri ncjackso -- Jackson County, North Carolina ncsampso -- Sampson County, North Carolina nysulliv -- Sullivan County, New York ohcoshoc -- Coshocton County, Ohio ohpreble -- Preble County, Ohio ohvanwer -- Van Wert County, Ohio sdcuster -- Custer County, South Dakota vaprinc2 -- Princess Anne County, Virginia (2nd issue) varappah -- Rappahannock County, Virginia wvkgs -- KYOWVA Genealogical Society * * * * * BEHIND THE SCENES AT ROOTSWEB: EXCERPTS FROM THE STAFF DIARY. 8/3/98 Pac Bell just installed our sixth and seventh T1s. They run into the PMC NOC. I haven't turned them up yet, but we should have live wires within a week or two. This gives us basically three empty Ts to fill. Rock and roll! Cheers, B. [Dr. Leverich] * * * * * DOES ULTIMATE FAMILY TREE HAVE ROOTS? by Brian Mavrogeorge, Palladium Interactive, Inc. Yes, it does. In 1984, when I was working on a Kaypro computer (the original 80-lb. laptop computer with 64K memory, that took two hours to sort 750 records in a database), Howard Nurse had already started a company called COMMSOFT, and had rolled out two genealogy software programs, ROOTS-89 and ROOTS/M. ROOTS-89 was made exclusively for the Heath Kit computer, while ROOTS/M was for the CPM machines. They were among the first genealogy programs available, sold through genealogy publications and trade shows. COMMSOFT went on to launch the DOS programs ROOTS II, ROOTS III, and ROOTS IV. ROOTS II/III were memory-based and very fast. The downside was that as you added more people to your database, you needed more memory, which then was quite expensive. Nurse's answer was ROOTS IV, which used disk space rather than memory for its operations. Visual Roots was a light version of ROOTS IV, designed for Windows. Its strength was its ease of use. COMMSOFT then partnered with Palladium Interactive to create Family Gathering. Family Gathering, widely distributed and sold in computer stores, attracted even greater numbers of people to genealogy. Family Gathering went on to become Ultimate Family Tree. With Ultimate Family Tree, Palladium combined Family Gathering's ease of use with the full-featured ROOTS V. Ultimate Family Tree version 2.8 is currently available. Palladium not only has roots in the community, it has branches, and a history of product excellence and innovation. * * * Visit Palladium's new Ultimate Family Data Library at and search the free master index to its brand-new CD collection. * * * Ultimate Family Tree is pleased to introduce the UFT-L mailing list, hosted by RootsWeb. The list is a great way to get involved with the Ultimate Family Tree user community and keep up to date with the latest product and Web site happenings. To subscribe to the list, send an e-mail message to UFT-L-request@rootsweb.com that contains the word subscribe and nothing else. We hope you'll join us! * * * * * WEB ACCOUNT REQUESTS. RootsWeb is caught up on the backlog of creating new Web accounts. However, if you previously submitted a request and have not received your account information, please resubmit. We regret any oversights. To request a Web account please e-mail the information to: accounts@rootsweb.com MAILING LIST REQUESTS. USGenWeb and WorldGenWeb hosts may have FREE locality mailing lists for the areas they host and for that purpose may ignore the "Sponsors-only" warning on the list request page. Please request new mailing lists at: * * * * * HUMOR: Barrie J. Wright of Adelaide, South Australia, writes: "In the interests of international humor, I can add another old Aussie-Texas joke, probably as old as 1942-45 when we fought together over here. "A couple of Texans got off a plane in Sydney. The one who had been there before was briefing the other one on what to expect: "They're OK, these Ossies, but you'll find they take themselves a bit too seriously sometimes, so you'll have to humor them. For instance, if they say that Australia is bigger than Texas, you just make out you believe 'em!" He adds: "This e-mail letter writing is infectious -- I found an Aussie link in the Australian success letter you just published!" * * * * * PERMISSION TO REPRINT articles from ROOTSWEB REVIEW is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, PROVIDED: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; (2) full credit is given to RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative and the author involved, in a notice crediting RootsWeb Review (volume, number, publication date, and the address of RootsWeb's main Web page at and the author (name, e-mail address, and URL, if applicable)). * * * AUTHORS MUST ADVISE THE EDITORS AT THE TIME OF SUBMISSION OF AN ARTICLE for consideration for publication in ROOTSWEB REVIEW if their special permission to reprint is required. * * * * * RootsWeb Review is e-mailed on Wednesdays to all RootsWeb Members, subscribers to RootsWeb-hosted mailing lists, submitters to the Roots Surname List (RSL), and others who use the resources provided by RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative. UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS: If you would prefer not to receive future issues of RootsWeb Review, please e-mail: RootsWeb-Review-L-request@rootsweb.com and put ONLY the word "unsubscribe" (omit the quotation marks) in the subject line and in the body of the message. * * * * * WE ARE UNABLE TO ANSWER E-MAIL REQUESTS FOR RESEARCH ASSISTANCE ____