Karin Corbeil's Genealogy Page

How to Search RootsWeb and GenWeb mailing lists

For ROOTSWEB mailing lists go to:

http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl

Type in the mailing list you want to search (such as LANCSGEN, MAYFLOWER)

A second search box will appear, then type in the keyword (or surname) you are looking for. Also you will need to check a year. You can only search one year at a time. A list will come up, click on "Full" for each message.


GENWEB mailing lists are a little more tricky.

Go to: http://listserv.northwest.com/~haight/form1.shtml

Type in a keyword (or surname) you are searching. You need only fill in the first box. Be patient, it may take awhile.

A Search results page will come up with a list of sites, i.e.

/home//ftp/pub/archive/quebec-digest.archive/v01.n029
/home//ftp/pub/archive/quebec-digest.archive/v01.n030
/home//ftp/pub/archive/quebec-digest.archive/v01.n031

Save this page by copying and pasting into Notepad or Wordpad. Or if your browser has the capabilities, open a new window.

Go back to your browser (or your new window) and in your location or go to box type in using the appropriate digest.archive name as shown on your search results page:

ftp://www.genweb.net/pub/archive//quebec-digest.archive/

Note it begins FTP not HTTP. And the double slashes after "archive". If you are familiar in using FTP (File Transfer Protocal) you can do it that way by logging in anonymously into ftp.genweb.net

When the list comes up, click on the item #(i.e. v01.n029) as specified on the Search Results page.

This will bring up that particular digest where your keyword or surname is mentioned.
Use your "back" button to return to the list and click on the next one.

Once you become comfortable with these searches, feel free to eliminate all those unrelated mailing lists (ROOTSWEB and GENWEB lists only!) that you fear might be lost forever and free up that valuable disk space.

Please know that this is not a tool to use instead of subscribing to a list because there is much valuable information to be gotten from these mailing lists. But just incase you missed something or want to check out the older lists, there is a way.

This site designed and maintained by Karin B. Corbeil © 1997-2001. All rights reserved. DISCLAIMER