LONDON-L Archives

Archiver > LONDON > 2002-07 > 1027768781


From: "Kate Martinson" <>
Subject: RE: [Lon] KILLINGLY/KILLINGLEY
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 12:25:28 +0100
In-Reply-To: <000701c234f8$014aac80$a9edfc3e@davidlon>


David Lonergan wrote:

>If you can't provide a constructive answered to a question in a polite
>manner then don't bother answering, its as simple as that.
>
And nobody did. What breached the List etiquette was the poster
querying why nobody had answered her. She is merely being answered. As
far as I'm concerned, if somebody posts a question along the lines of
"looking for John Smith, born about 1850 in London - info from 1881
census, no further details", and if I have the time, I will happily
search in my collection of sources. Between the thousands of
expereinced genies on this List, this can often lead to a breakthrough.
If the query merely asks for connections to a name, with no details and
no indication that the poster has done any research for him/herself it
is unlikely to obtain a response - nobody wants to waste my time doing
research that has been done before and receiving a reply along the lines
of, "thanks, but my John Smith was carpenter and the one you sent me was
a dock labourer".

Kate Martinson

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