5 Quick Tips for Getting Better Results from Genealogy Message Boards

[Jack Blair]

If you've been researching your family tree for any length of time,
you've no doubt come across (and perhaps even used) genealogy forums,
discussion groups or mailing lists. While these can be a great
resource for essentially putting other people to work on your research
project, the results can sometimes be, shall we say, "uneven." But the
problem may not be the board, forum or list you're using. It might not
even be that you're asking terribly difficult questions, or looking
for incredibly obscure pieces of information. Instead, your lack of
results could be a simple case of not understanding the proper way to
use these incredibly powerful tools.
When you post a query online, you're asking your question of thousands
of people around the world. Amazingly enough, considering that people
are strangers to each other, you'll often get long and helpful answers
to your queries. But if you're not, if you've been posting lots of
messages and getting infrequent replies (or none at all), it may mean
that you weren't sufficiently clear in the query you posted.
You can often double your chances of getting a response if you...
1. Type surnames in capital letters, LIKE THIS - it makes them stand
out.
2. Are brief, but add important information, such as: dates of birth
and death, areas the person lived, name of spouse, and of children.
Here's an example of a query: 'DENHAM, Harold Edward - I'm looking for
the parents of Harold Edward DENHAM of Ithaca NY (1855-1909). His wife
was Julia Elisabeth KINGSTON, and they had two sons, Edward, who died
in 1900, and John, who is my grandfather. You can contact me at
myemail...@yahoo.com. Many thanks.'
3. Are concise in your query, but add as much information as you have,
and remember to ask for what you want. For example, you could start
your query with phrases like: Need the parents of (or children, or
wife, etc); More information about; Would like to correspond with
anyone knowing... and so on.
4. Can narrow down the region in which your ancestor lived to a county
or a town. If you can, do so, especially if you're looking for a
popular surname.
5. Don't include too much information, and also, don't ask for too
much information. If you want information on several members of a
family, post separate queries for each one. Most people skim forums,
and if a query looks too complex, they'll pass over it.
Some Genealogy Message Boards to Check Out:
* Ancestry.com's Genealogy Message Boards at http://www.ancestry.com/share/main.htm
* The Village at http://www.gendir.com/village/
* RootsWeb.com Message Boards at http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/script/main/rw
* HeritageQuest Queries Center at http://www2.heritagequest.com/eventcenter/qcenter.htm

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