I believe that if you contribute at the rate of $25.00 per year you can have a notification service that alerts you to the appearance of any key words that you name.  Why not become better acquainted with them.

[Note here from WebMaster of this web site, who is also Listowner of the GERMANNA_COLONIES Mailing List at Rootsweb:  John is referring to the Personalized Mailing List (PML), that is one of the many benefits of becoming a sponsor , or a supporter of RootsWeb.  The PML is a service that allows you to have daily notifications sent to your email address of ANY emails sent to ANY Mailing List at Rootsweb, containing any of the "key words" that you have entered into your personal PML setup.  In other words, if you wish to be notified of any email, on any Mailing List at RootsWeb, that contains the word " Blankenbaker ", you may do so by using the PML and setting up your personal filters.  It is kind of tricky to set up your "key words", and you must be able to use "boolean" searches, which is explained on the page where you "sign up". (If any of you ever need help on this subject, feel free to email me here .

To become a sponsor , or a supporter of RootsWeb, go to this URL:

http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html

Once you have subscribed, you can go to this URL to set up your PML settings the first time:

http://pml.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/UserPML

From then on, you can go here to make changes to the PML Search:

http://pml.rootsweb.com/ ]

There was a story on RootsWeb this morning that I am going to repeat here and it will take a couple of notes:

by John Palmer john.palmer@wirksworth.org.uk :

"My mother had a rare name, DOXEY, and came from a place in the middle of Derbyshire, England, called Wirksworth.  In 1995, using the IGI, I traced her line back to 1595, still in Wirksworth.

I went to Lichfield Cathedral, where the Bishop in charge of Wirksworth used to live, and asked for the Bishops Transcripts.  Here they are sir, one-foot-wide and four-feet-long, in a roll of 350-year-old parchment.  Don't you have photocopies of these?  No sir, you'll have to use the originals to work from.  But that's terrible, they'll fall to bits.  Shrug.  Then I spoke the words that changed my life.  I'll do a deal, you send me photocopies and I'll transcribe them to computer, index them and send you the printouts.  A month later, ding-dong, the postman - a parcel for you sir.  My heart sank; there's a year's work here.

"I started typing, on my old computer.  It was hard work, but it got interesting.  Six months later I finished the job and posted printouts to Lichfield.  But I was hooked.  I'd gotten to know names and places from old Wirksworth -- they were like my family.  How about doing the Parish Registers, and get everyone in Wirksworth 1600-1900 on computer?  I contacted the IGI HQ in England and asked will you lend me microfilm of the Registers to use at home, here's what I'm trying to do.  Sure thing, but we'd like you to send us a progress report every six months, and a copy of your final results, for free.

"I bought a bigger computer and a fiche reader and started typing again.  Three years of very hard work later I'd finished 70,000 Register entries.  A friend had a Web site, so I got myself an ISP and bought a paperback about HTML.  Soon I had all the Parish Register entries on my own Web site and was getting a flood of e-mails from around the world, inquiries, and fan-mail.  Now I was really hooked on Wirksworth."

[To be continued]