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This is a list of questions often asked about the MIDDLESEX mailing list, and also other useful information. Whilst the list owner is always happy to help in times of difficulty, you may well find that the answers to many of your questions about the list are contained below.
This is a discussion area for anyone who has an interest in genealogy and local history related to the county of MIDDLESEX.
The aim of this list is to help each other by sharing information and knowledge, advising where one can locate, or offer to help search sources, in England & abroad, for research in county of MIDDLESEX.
The list owner is Brian Fisk, who spent the first three years of his life in Sunbury-upon-Thames, Middlesex. His family having lived in Middlesex since the late 1830s. Subsequently he moved to Bognor Regis in Sussex where he lived till he went to university in Southampton, Hampshire. He has lived in Hampshire ever since; currently being resident in Winchester.
The function of the listowner is to maintain the list of subscribers and to keep the list running smoothly. The list is not moderated, and the list owner wants in no way to stifle free discussion. However, he reserves the right to step in if a flame war erupts that becomes tedious for other subscribers, or if someone becomes unseemly (excessive use of profanity, for instance).
Before applying for subscription to the list, decide whether you would like to receive mail from the lists as individual items ("mail mode") or have several mailings grouped together as attachments in a single file ("digest mode"), usually delivered about once per day. Note that some ISPs, notably AOL, cannot receive digests from Rootsweb.
Applications for subscription in mail mode should be sent to the address
Middlesex_County_UK-L-request@rootsweb.com
Applications for subscription in digest mode should be sent to the address
Middlesex_County_UK-D-request@rootsweb.com
In both cases, the body of the email should contain just the one word
subscribe
All applications for subscription are processed automatically by Rootsweb, most failures are sent to the listowner, who will process them manually. In order to avoid known spammers subscribing, a list of excluded e-mail addresses is maintained by the list owner.
Requests to unsubscribe from mail mode should be sent to the address
Middlesex_County_UK-L-request@rootsweb.com
Requests to unsubscribe from digest mode should be sent to the address
Middlesex_County_UK-D-request@rootsweb.com
In both cases, the body of the email should contain just the one word
unsubscribe
The following URL provides a means of such an enquiry http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com
Please DO NOT send attachments with list mail. These can cause technical problems for some subscribers, and frustration for others who are trying to keep down their telephone bills! Once you have established a common interest with a fellow subscriber, then is the time to send more detailed information privately. All such postings will fail as RootsWeb rejects all attachments to safeguard against propagating viruses.
Please read the list rules which can be found at List rules - posting to the list will be taken as acceptance of those rules.
Informative subject headings are more likely to bring informative replies.
A message with a subject heading such as 'Looking for John Smith, Brighton SSX 1825' is much more likely to be read than one with a heading of just 'Help'.
Many people won't even read the posting unless the subject line makes them think this posting is interest to them!
Send all mail as plain text - other formats will be rejected by ROOTSWEB.
See page for instructions on turning off HTML in most of the popular mail programs, or ask your ISP's technical support line for help.
Under no circumstances post comments about other people's postings
By all means reply with information or helpful suggestions. I, as list owner, reserve the sole right to determine when people step out of line. If you do have such concerns, a private e-mail to me is the correct approach.
Use standard county codes, where possible
Some useful standard (Chapman) codes are:MDX - Middlesex
LND - London
KEN - Kent
SRY - Surrey
SSX - SussexBy consistently using these codes in subject headings, confusion can be avoided.
Personal mail and chatting
If you have a personal message (non relevant reply to question or just thanks) for the sender, please send it to their Email address, NOT the list server address. Any mail sent to
Middlesex_County_UK-L@rootsweb.com will automatically be sent to everyone on the list.
Professional Researchers
Please don't make recommendations for professional researcher's here - send these directly to the requester. These lists are public and the archives are available for an indefinite period of time; readers might not realise that your recommendation is really just for a given point in time not for ever! In some countries litigation might even result if they failed to live up to expectations! RootsWeb, who publish these lists, might be open to such litigation as well as you, the author!
Other Mailing Lists
Please do not post information about other mailing lists here without my express permission. If you have just started a new mailing list then there are more appropriate mailing lists such as GENBRIT for publicising such information. If your posting is in direct response to a request on the list then that is normally acceptable provided the original request can be reasonably construed to relate to Middlesex.
My policy is as follows:
Surname Lists cannot be publicised here unless the owner can satisfy me that they have a particular relevance to Middlesex.
Occupation Lists relevant to Middlesex will be permitted at my discretion
County Lists (or other area lists) will normally be permitted if adjacent to Middlesex
Other lists at my discretion provided the owner can show relevance to Middlesex.
If we don't have some sensible rules then we would get overloaded with postings of little interest to others. If you are a list owner then I can't see anything wrong with ending your normal postings with something like
Brenda Bova
FISKE surname list owner (FISKE-L@rootsweb.com)
All surnames should be in upper case
this includes those on the subject line; it makes the posting easier to read.
Family Reunion Notices
All such invitations must come to me first and the prospective poster must demonstrate to me why their event has a particular relevance to Middlesex.
I don't want to prevent publicity for these events but I do want to make sure that this mailing list doesn't get clogged up with notices of reunions and other similar events. If the number of requests remains small, then I propose to be sympathetic. If it gets out of hand I shall take a hard stance and probably ban them all!
Virus Warnings
Please do not post VIRUS warnings here. This mailing list is strictly for genealogical matters relating to the county of Middlesex in England. I know it seems like a common courtesy but many of these warnings are hoaxes and everyone should be running virus scanning software especially if connected to the InterNet. This mailing list comes from RootsWeb which is set up to prevent propagation of viruses by e-mail so there is no risk from using this list.
Replies
Before sending a reply to the list make sure who you should send the reply to. I have often seen postings sent to the list which should really be sent to the poster. A good example of this is sending requests to a specific individual do look ups. There is no need to post these requests on the list and waste resources sending the posting to all 800+ readers. In order to help I have made the default operation of the mailing list so that replies will go direct to the poster rather than to the list. If you want the reply to go to the list then you must modify the TO field in your e-mail to Middlesex_County_UK-L@rootsweb.com
Please think hard, before you press the send button, and make sure you are sending the e-mail to the correct address. A simple rule of thumb is to ask yourself the question: "Would I want to see this e-mail if I wasn't the person who posted the original message?"
Please see the following page
| archive |
In the body of the message put the words
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search subject: latest/* |
You will receive back a list of archived messages, in the format
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BEGIN---------------cut here------------------
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Choose the numbers of the messages you wish to retrieve, then send another message to Middlesex_County_UK-L-request@rootsweb.com , with a subject heading
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archive |
In the body of the message the words
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send latest/aa latest/bb latest/cc |
where "aa", "bb", "cc" are the numbers of the messages you wish to retrieve.
You will receive back the original messages, in individual mailings.
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archive |
In the body of the message put the words
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maxfiles 100
send volume97/nn |
If you wish to retrieve ALL digests, then put in the body of the message the words
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maxfiles 100
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The digests will be returned individually as attachments to mails.