PAERIE-L Archives

Archiver > PAERIE > 2002-07 > 1027279727


From: "Dennis Murphy" <>
Subject: Re: [PAERIE] Obituaries, Biographies and the like
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 15:31:12 -0400
References: <00da01c22eed$6d998660$6501a8c0@billbasement>


To all:

I am a relative newcomer to the list and I joined for two reasons.

First, I have a long lost direct line ancestor, Anna Murphy (1877-1958) who
married a different line MURPHY, named William T. Murphy (1876-1932) from
Erie, PA. I have tried, thus far in vain, to find more information on this
Pennsylvania MURPHY family. The death certificate for William offers nothing
on any Erie connections as William apparently moved to Cleveland, met and
married Anna, and remained, died and was buried in Cleveland, Ohio. My
family has all of its Irish roots in the Cleveland and Cuyahoga County area
of that city. However in the last six months of watching this list, I have
seen very little on the Irish of Erie and nothing on any MURPHY family.
Still, I keep my hopes high.

Second, I joined this list as I am about a 10 year resident of Crawford
County, Erie's southern neighbor. As a genealogist for over 30 years, I like
to keep my eyes and ears open for anything "genealogical" in any area I
visit and especially where I now live. I must say that I have found this
list not only interesting at times, but also rather informative at times.
Though there are things that I would like do "see done" I must say that
anything that anyone finds lacking, I personally feel, is often one's own
fault. To clarify that last remark, I myself do not take an active part on
this list as a norm, and after my initial query posting this is likely my
second email. So you see, I did not ask or actively seek, so I cannot
complain if what I would like to see does not appear. My only lame excuse is
that I subscribe to and read so many lists that I simply do not have time to
actively participate on all of them. Which now leads me to my only real
complaint about this list.

Now before you begin to read my complaint, ask yourself right now how you
feel having finish reading my last paragraph. If need be go back now and
read it again.

Some of you will no doubt agree with me while some of you may not. Some of
you may even be a little bit angry at me, perhaps because I simply "take'
all the information I can get and never "give" back. At that's good because
it is selfish and you should be angry. But here's the catch. So what and who
cares. Selfishness is a human trait and everyone is guilty of it in one way
or another. I suspect even Mother Theresa ask for forgiveness from that sin
within her last six confessions. Now this last paragraph is sure to start a
brew ha ha so now here's my true complaint.

When all those personal squabbles and petty arguments begin on these lists
(and they all get them from time to time) I tend to blame the list manager
for not stepping and putting a stop to it with a gentle note, and if that is
ineffective, then his editing and executive powers should be fully employed.
However, in their defense, I realize that many do not have enough time, etc.
and, personally, I would not want the job as I can imagine it's not easy.
However, I am sure that this email will likely start another round of narrow
minded "county bumpkins" from showering this list, and my email box, with
petty diatribes and malicious comments. I stand poised and ready, hovering
over my Delete button. This is a test.

Guess Who



----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Klauk" <>
To: <>
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 2:27 AM
Subject: [PAERIE] Obituaries, Biographies and the like


Hello List,
Several people during this latest 'discussion' have asked where I am. I am
here busy deleting all these unwanted messages from both the NYChatauqua and
the PAErie mail lists and hoping that they can somehow appear on the website
where they can be indexed by our Pico Search engine and be easily found by
both newbie and experienced researcher. Data on the website reaches a far
greater audience than any mail list. While I agree that recent postings
could be valuable to some, if the data is posted elsewhere such as to a
Rootsweb Message Board, I would much rather see a thumbnail brief and/or a
surname index on the mail list. What I would really like to see is all of
this data going directly to the Erie Co (PA) Genealogy website directly, and
then there would be no need for it to go on a mail list.

The Rootsweb Message Boards are a fine depository for data; however, one
must conduct a separate search on those boards. Having the data on the Erie
Co website itself, or having an index to that data has been a goal of mine
since I started maintaining the website. The old GenConnect Boards were
easy to capture data and build indexes, and some of you may have discovered
one of my attempts at capturing information under the Everything Else Goes
Here index. The previously maintained surname lists and query lists were
also a good tool. Unfortunately, the antiquated program that is still
available to maintain them takes far more work than what I have available to
me. I would rather spend my time converting well prepared documents to HTML
and posting as web pages, such as the recent contributions from three
different individuals concerning the Sherrod family; or in editing and
posting gravestone pictures of Erie County to the Find-a-Grave site (where I
am now over 4000 pictures with probably 3500 or more from Erie Co). I also
have a long term project to bring all that information back onto the
website.

Stepping up on soapbox. July is almost over. I have been running a
cemetery theme for two months now. I have had very little input. I ran a
whole month with a Census theme. I keep seeing messages asking about census
information. I did not get one single input during that month with any
census data (I'm not counting the beginning of April input from the 1930
census or several 'directories') Enough said. Stepping off of soapbox.

Wrapping this up. The PAERIE-L mail list has a topic of Erie Co, PA. It is
meant to support the Erie Co website. Jeff LaMarca is the mail list
administrator. The mail list administrator is required to determine the
guidelines for the list. I am the Rootsweb Message Board Administrator. I
set the guidelines for the Message Board. Mail list administrators have far
more leeway in determining the "rules" for the list than the Message Board
administrators. Some lists I belong to use "gateways" from the boards to
the list while other lists I belong to restrict to absolutely no roll calls
and only send queries during a specified week four times a year. I
personally would never have a board gatewayed for multiple reasons, but if a
list administrator (and board administrator) want to have an open gateway,
then they can do it. If a list administrator wants to restrict roll calls
and the posting of queries except during specified times, they can do it. I
think our list is a nice happy medium and I would like to see it stay that
way. Let's not have attacks against the administrator on the list - do it
in private!

Bill Klauk
Volunteer County Coordinator, Erie Co (PA) Genealogy, USGenWeb/PAGenWeb
http://www.rootsweb.com/~paerie
Rootsweb Message Board Administrator, Erie Co (PA)

______________________________

This thread: