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Archiver > OKGEN > 1999-10 > 0938973394


From: Sharon McAllister <>
Subject: [OKGEN ] SIGNATURE LINES
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 13:56:34 -0400


Message text written by Lois Feldman Coffelt:
>
Sharon McAllister, perhaps you can explain it better than I did. I
was asked when I was on GEN-NEWBIE to do this for the reason explained
above.
<

Lois, I think you covered it quite nicely.

To give newcomers a concrete example ,though, let's say that I posted
something about my COLE family to the OKGEN list. The RootsWeb search
engine would find it easily when someone asked for all references to COLEs.
[I'm using this example because I do want to hear from ANYONE who is
researching any COLE family that was in the area in Territorial days and
therefore hope that COLE researchers who find this particular message in
the archives will write to me.]

BUT if I added a signature line with a dozen or so other surnames, most
people who found my theoretical message -- or this one, for that matter --
would be quite disappointed. After enough similar disappointments some
might get so disgusted with the results of the search engine that they'd
give up. That's why RootsWeb has a policy against including surnames in
signature lines.

Some listowners say you can put surnames in your signature IF you use
spaces, periods, or asterisks to separate the letters. That fools the
search engine, but people can still read it. I think it's an ingenious
solution, but I don't do it myself because it's easier to simply refrain
from putting surnames in a signature line than to remember which listowners
allow the workaround and which ones object <G>.

Sharon McAllister

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