Newsgroups and
Mailing Lists
No-one told me about newsgroups or discussion groups
when I first started on the Web, but they are
something that I enjoy and check every day. My server
has a list of newsgoups to which I can subscribe, and
I can turn them on and off at will. Go to HELP
on your menu bar to find out how to locate them.
On my browser (Netscape Navigator), I go to FILE
on the menu bar of my email Mailbox, and select
"Subscribe to Discussion Groups".
It takes quite a
while to download the list of available Discussion
Groups, so go and prune your roses for a while.
When the list comes up, all you need to do (on my
browser, anyway) is put a tick next to the one you
want. Don't be afraid of the number of messages
contained in some of the larger newsgroups. Each
day some messages are deleted and new ones
added. Once you have got through the initial
large number of messages, the new ones that come in
every day are more manageable.
Go down to
the "soc.genealogy." area of the newsgroups to
find an area of interest.
"soc.genealogy.australia+nz" is a must for
Australian researchers, but you can find other ones
for Ireland, England, America, South Africa, and so
on. Take a while to look through a few to find
some that suit you.
Mailing Lists work a bit
differently. You can subscribe to a list
covering the area of your interest, and you will get
postings from subscribers direct to your email, or
get them sent in a "digest" of several
postings. Your posts to the mailing list will
likewise be distributed to other members.
You can subscribe (for free!)
to mailing lists covering your particular area of
interest. Try one and see how it works.
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Newsgroups and Mailing Lists are a bad
place to put your usual email address, so created
a Hotmail or Yahoo mailing list and use those for
your mailing lists, and set your message filters
to exclusive to filter out the spam.
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