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Usenet NewsGroups

© Leona MacDonald

Usenet can be a very useful tool for the Irish researcher. You'd be well served to use it. Often you will find lots of people very willing to help you. Many times they live and work right in Ireland, gladly using their free time to do lookups or just steer you in the correct direction.

Usenet is like a huge e-mail based discussion board. Yes you've probably seen these "newsgroups"listed on your mail program or browsers and wondered what that was all about. Well you can actually find out anything you want in Usenet Newsgroups. The Irish Genealogy forum is one of millions of groups you can use to send a message and get a response back from someone in a far flung corner of the world. It is networking at it's finest.

A Few Suggestions

Before we get into where to go. Let's get into cover some things that might help you.

• Family names should be listed in the subject line in caps. Only list the family the post is about. If it's a general question then list what the question is about. For example if it's a question about a town then type the town in the subject line. Give folks as much data as possible so they know if they want to read it or not.
• Don't get all upset about Spam in the group. It happens. Remember, you can't do anything about it. All you do is add to the mayhem by posting complaints. There are enough messages to get through as it is, and the person doing the Spam probably isn't paying any attention to the postings. You will only be making noise.
• Don't crosspost! It's generally not a good idea.
• If your Internet Provider doesn't have a news server or you are worried about privacy then you can use Deja.com. It's free and you have the ability to read only the messages under whatever headings you want. You'll have to apply for an account.
• When you respond to a message please ..dear God please.. use the same subject line as the message you are responding to. It's easier to keep track of.
• Be polite, mind your manners, and say thank you. Show them you have class. :-)

  Some folks complain if you drift off topic in Usenet newsgroups. In my opinion, this is a fun and interesting part of Usenet and folks should get over it. Golly...most folks don't agree with me. Prepare for abuse you if you do it. Lord knows they abuse me if I get off topic!