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From: "Eddy Flick" <>
Subject: Re: [ADVANRES] RESEARCH METHODS FOR A BRICK WALL ANCESTOR WHOMAYHAVE CHANGED HIS NAME
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 18:31:50 -0400
References: <004101c818e4$83160e50$6800a8c0@Toby><4723B900.5030606@verizon.net>


Pardon Me MR GILLIS, whoever you are. If I had more information to give I
would have given it!


Eddy A. Flick


GEE!!



----- Original Message -----
From: "bob gillis" <>
To: <>
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2007 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: [ADVANRES] RESEARCH METHODS FOR A BRICK WALL ANCESTOR WHO
MAYHAVE CHANGED HIS NAME


Without knowing what more information Eddy has about his grandfather and
where
Eddy has looked for him, it is difficult to advise where and how else to
look

The second part of my reply contains good suggestions for composing a
query on any list.

bob gillis


Eddy Flick wrote:
> My paternal grandfather vanished in1920. He was born as Roy Joseph
> Varble. For some reason he was parentless at age 8, and was working
> on a farm at 15 with a family named Flick. He was never adopted but
> thought a lot of them and took their name and was using the name
> Flick from age 15 til he vanished at at 40.
>
> I have tried all kinds of tricks but he remains among the missing.
> Maybe if I had the money to check death records in every state I
> could maybe find him. Does anyone have any ideas or resources? He
> vanished form Quincy, Adams County, IL

The following message about good queries was posted on MAESSEX a couple
of years ago by an experienced and very helpful researcher. I have made
a few additions and edits:

I'm going to give you some <vbg>. (Hang on a second while I climb onto
the soapbox <vbg>. Yes, I admit to being a bit of a fanatic on some of
the advice I'm going to give -- esp. on subject lines -- but I'd like to
think that I'm experienced enough to pretty much know what I'm talking
about) Some ideas for when you post queries to this (or other) lists,
and for when you respond to what others have asked:

1) Read the list topic that you are thinking about posting to and be
sure your post is in topic. If the post is not clearly on topic and you
feel it is , explain why. Do not leave it understood.
2) Put surnames (family names) in CAPITALS, at least the first time in a
post. {Hint for really new people: putting anything in caps other than
surnames is regarded by many as flaming or shouting and rude.} If
someone gets the digest version of the list and skims it, being able to
pick out surnames (and to quickly distinguish them from place names) is
a big help.

3) Have good, clear subject lines. I get lots of email (often 500+
messages a day). I delete anything that says "my family" or "looking for
Smiths" or "MAESSEX Digest #123" -- usually without reading it. I've got
extensive research in my computer on 4 different families named Brown (2
in Essex County MA, before 1750, and 2 in Scotland -- Edinburgh and
Peebles, both before 1800) but I probably won't read something that just
says John Brown, with no
dates or places. Some examples of what is much more likely to catch my eye:

* John BROWN, b. early 1800, Essex Co, MA
* John BROWN, m. abt 1850, southern Scotland
* Samuel SMITH, MA, about 1700
* Elizabeth SMITH m. ?, Columbiana, OH, about 1857
* Ivan DOEZINSKI, probably b. Warsaw, 1886

4) Be specific about what you already know and include it in your query.
If you don't know anything specific, give a reasonable guess. If you say
you are looking for your grandfather, I can't see through the modem
lines to see if you are 22 and your grandfather was probably b. in 1930,
or if you were born in 1930 and your grandfather was probably born in
1880... and the research methods would be very different in those two cases.

5) Give the rest of us some idea where you have looked. Don't just say
'everywhere'. Have you checked the VRs for where the event happened? The
LDS resources like the IGI and the Ancestral File? The census for the
year closest to the event? I can't read your notes, only what you put in
your email. I'm very busy with my own work so I'm not going to take on
too much in the way of look-ups but I'm more likely to look for
something if you show that you've actually done something and aren't
just trying to get someone else to do all your drudge work for you.

6) Read a background book about how to do genealogy, so you will have
some idea how to go about things: Is the census going to be helpful? Are
you likely to find a birth or death certificate in that time and place
or do you need to find alternates?

7) Be specific about what you are looking for (and, if you are answering
a question, make sure you have really read it). For example, I have
posted queries at Genforum and on mailing lists, where I clearly said I
had lots of information on a man, bmd dates & places, parents, the
works. and that I was interested in his wife before the marriage. I had
her marriage date, all their kids' names and dates, and her death date.
In some cases, I even gave that information. In many cases, I received
many (a dozen or more) responses where a person has lifted some
information on the husband from the AF or WFT (neither of which is the
most reliable source...) and sends it to me. I try to be polite and just
say thanks but it is hard after the 17th response.

8) Check Cyndi's List at http://www.cyndislist.com/ for links and basic
information on libraries, genealogical societies, and so on before
asking on a list.

8a) If you are asking about a printed reference give your city and state
so the responders can direct you to a repository in your area.


9) Use conventional punctuation: one period and not ellipses at the
end of sentences.

10) The response rate to your query can be nothing, one message, or
many. [And one good response is better than a dozen guesses....] The
better you phrase your query, the more likely you are to get a helpful
answer. One point to remember: if you are looking for information on
recent (post-1850 or 1900 or so) people, they have relatively few
descendants who might also be looking for them. For example, my mother's
great-grandfather died in 1907 -- and he has only 15 living descendants.
The further back the person you are looking for, the more likely someone
else will have specific information on hand. I have seen estimates that
some early New England immigrants may now have several hundred thousand
descendants, so the chances that someone on a list (a relevant list) is
also researching that person is much higher than for someone who died in
1925. For more recent people, try asking methodological questions, such
as: my grandfather John Brown died in 1947 at [Salem, or Topsfield, or
wherever] -- how can I find who his parents were? The chances that
anyone on a list would have his parents’ names are slight but there
could be many people who could answer the methodological question so
that you could find the answer you want.



Final thoughts:
I don't know about others, but I prefer if people have slightly longer
original posts and make it clear what they already have, where they have
looked and exactly (method, specific date, connections to other
descendants) what they are looking for. I'm much more likely to take the
time to help if it is clear that the person posting has taken the time
to frame a good question. Again, I don't know about others, but I try to
send, at least, my first response to a query to the list, so a) if there
are lurkers who want the info, they get it, and b) others know when a
query has been answered and don't go over the same ground again.

bob gillisk
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