Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain

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This is the JGSGB Online Discussion Group, the discussion forum of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain (JGSGB).

Please click on the links for information
Introduction
Managing your subscription (including subscribing and unsubscribing)
How to post a message to the Discussion Group
Replying to a message
Message content and netiquette
Message Archives
Special instructions
  for AOL users
  for Hotmail and Yahoo users
  for MSN MAIL users
Any problems?  Who to Contact.

We hope that you will enjoy participating in the Online Discussion Group of the JGSGB.
 

Introduction

The objectives of this Discussion Group are to:
* help one another to learn and discover more about Jewish genealogy, research methods and resources.
* share information and resources amongst Members.
* facilitate establishing contact with Members researching the same families or the same geographical areas.
* promote the activities of the JGSGB.

This Group is run for the benefit of the Members of JGSGB.  Only members of JGSGB may join the Group.  There is no separate charge to participate in this Group.  The Discussion Group uses the Lyris list management system hosted by JewishGen.

The Group is appropriate for both beginner and experienced genealogist alike.

The scope of this Discussion Group is global to support the global research interests of our members.

The list is "moderated" by a Moderator whose role is to keep the discussions on track and not let them get cluttered with irrelevant, inappropriate or personal messages of no interest to the general
readership.  Messages submitted by Members for posting may be edited or rejected at the discretion of the Moderator.

There is no obligation to post any messages and you are welcome to just read and enjoy the messages. However, by actively participating and posting messages, you may get one of your problems solved or perhaps help a fellow Member to solve one of their problems.

Please note that copying personal details (e.g. names, e-mail addresses) from the Discussion Group postings for commercial purposes is prohibited.
 

Managing your subscription

You are expected to manage your subscription yourself by logging in at

http://lyris.jewishgen.org:81/read/login/?forum=

and sign in with the email address you use for the discussion group
Press *OK*
Insert your password (previously sent to you)
Press *OK*
Select MY ACCOUNT and choose an option such as 'nomail' if you want to stop
your mail whilst you are on holday (don't forget to change it back when you
return).

NB. If you choose unsubscribe rather than 'nomail' you will not be able to rejoin without contacting the Moderator
 

Address your e-mail message/posting to jgsgb-discuss@lyris.jewishgen.org

SURNAMES should be in BLOCK CAPITALS.  Town, City and Country names in
proper upper and lower case letters.  This applies to all parts of the e-mail.

Provide a clear and descriptive subject line (Use block capitals only for SURNAMES).  The more descriptive the subject line the more likely you are to get a response.

For the body of the message ensure the "word wrap" facility (if this is available for your software) has been set on.

Like any other message, to gain the attention of the reader you should give the main point or summarise the request first.  Then continue with any supporting detail/information.

Please include the sources of your information wherever possible.  Avoid abbreviations where possible as they can be confusing to the less experienced members and our overseas-based members.

At the end of your message you must identify yourself by posting:
* your full name
* your location (town/city, county/state, and country).

Where appropriate, you may request that replies be sent directly to you rather than publicly to the Group.  This is appropriate where the replies are likely to contain personal information, or are likely to be relevant only to yourself and to no other members of the Group.

At your discretion, you may include at the end of your e-mail the URL of your own genealogy page (but not if it is a commercial site).

You may also include, at the end of your posting, up to six lines of names/geographical areas/topics that you are researching.  (Don't forget to record your surnames you are researching in the JewishGen Family Finder).

All views expressed in the Online Discussion Group are taken to be the views of the individual Members making the posting.  They are not the view of the Society unless an official of the Society (or one of its Committees, Special Interest Groups or Regional Groups) adds their Society title/role below their name.
 

Replying to a message

First consider whether your remarks are likely to be of general interest to the Group as a whole or whether they would be better sent as a private response only to the message originator.  If there are items of information that you believe some other members of the group might find interesting or useful then please do reply back to the Group.  However, if your reply contains any personal information about any living individual then it must be sent privately.

When you reply, please ensure that your reply is correctly addressed and is not sent to the entire Group if you only wanted it sent to the originator.

Your subject line should be "RE:  (subject line of previous post)".

When you post a reply to the Group, please make sure that you identify the message that you are responding to by giving the name of the author and the date the original message was posted.  In many instances it is appropriate to cut and paste a relevant portion of the original message to make the response easier to understand by all readers without them having to find and refer back to the original message.

When replying to a posting within a daily digest message, please ensure that you do not include all the other irrelevant messages from the digest in the text of your reply.  You need to cut and paste only the relevant section of the relevant message into your reply.
 

Message content and nettiquette

The following are examples of the types of messages we encourage (assuming they are relevant to Jewish genealogy):

• Details of resources such as books, CD's, libraries, record offices, cemeteries (provision of information or requests for information).
• Requests for assistance and offers of assistance (eg record lookups).
       Note: Any requests must be reasonable any must not request activities that breach copyright.  Any offers must be non-commercial.
• Geographical locations (provision of information or requests for information).
• Research techniques (provision of information or requests for information).
• Details of genealogy research projects.
• Summaries of research trips, meetings and seminars.
• Reviews of relevant books and summaries of relevant article (You must be careful that your posting does not breach copyright).
• Your genealogy success stories (but do give us tips on how you achieved your success so we can all learn).

The following messages may NOT be posted and will be rejected by the Moderator.

• Commercial messages (Note: a once only posting of the availability of a book, CD-ROM or similar item may be made by an individual without a vested
  commercial interest in the product.  Further postings of such information will be the sole discretion of the Moderator and must be appropriate to an
  ongoing message thread).
• Defamatory, abusive or indecent material.
• Messages that make derogatory remarks about any other individual or organisation.
• Messages that violate the law (eg breach copyright, make libellous remark, breach the provisions of the Data Protection Act) or which appear to be encouraging others to do so.  This includes messages with extensive quotations from a publication or an Internet page or e-mails without the
  permission of the copyright holder.
• Messages that include any personal information  (eg addresses, telephone numbers) about any individual who is living or might be living.
  You may apply a 100-year rule and assume that individuals born more than  100 years old are dead (unless there is any evidence to the contrary).

For long texts, long lists, transcriptions, indexes or information that others might find useful to refer to on a regular basis, there are likely to be more appropriate methods of making such material available to our Members.  Please contact the Chairman of the IT Committee in the first instance if you have such information.
 
 

Message Archives

Go to the following internet address    

http://lyris.jewishgen.org:81/read/login/?forum=

1.    Enter the email address with which you are registered on JGSGB-Discuss
       press OK or the ENTER key on your keyboard

2.    Enter your password which will have been sent to you separately by email
       press OK or the ENTER key on your keyboard

 (At this point it might be a good idea to bookmark the page)

3    Left mouse click on jgsgb-discuss which will appear in blue

 

Special Instructions for AOL users

If you use AOL Version 5 or earlier:
Check your settings and change to Plain Text if it is set to Styled Text (HTML) by following these steps:
Menu Command > (Tools-Options-Styled Text).
Select the option to set messages to 'send as both Plain and Styled Text'.
Mark the check box 'Ask me each time'.
For any messages containing styled/html content a dialogue pops up and
asks you to confirm from the three choices ("plain" or "styled" or "send
both"). Select the "plain" option for Discussion Groups like
jgsgb-discuss.

AOL 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0
If you are using AOL 6.0, 7.0 or 8.0, then you need to log on to AOL and select either Netscape or Internet Explorer as your browser -- Do not use AOL's web browser. Launch the browser, and type "www.aol.com" in the URL field. Sign on with your screen name and password. Click on mail. You will then be able to submit messages using AOL's "AOL Mail on the Web" service.

AOL 9.0
With the mouse arrow somewhere in the body of the message, click the right mouse button revealing a context menu
Choose "Compose as Plain Text"
Compose and address the email as desired
 
 

Special Instructions for Hotmail and Yahoo users

There are strong similarities between the way in which you compose emails when using these services.
Both provide an option to make your emails look pretty by using html formatting.  You must not do this
when sending emails to jgsgb-discuss as they will be rejected because html formatted emails can
conceal viruses.  Follow the instructions below as appropriate.

Hotmail: In the Compose window of Hotmail, if you see a Toolbar immediately above the section where you type your message, then your message will be sent as a Rich-Text message in HTML format. To revert to "Plain Text", look immediately above the left side of that toolbar for the "Tools" selection box. Click on the arrow, and then click on "Rich Text Editor OFF." A warning window will pop up asking if you want to do this -- click OK. The toolbar will disappear, and you will now be set up to send messages in Plain Text format.

Yahoo: In the Compose Window, above the large white space for typing your message
if it offers an option to Add Color and Graphics - Do NOT choose it
if it offers an option to Switch to plain version - choose it

 

Special Instructions MSN MAIL users

 It is not possible to send "Plain Text" messages using MSN Mail versions 7 and prior. You must use an alternate e-mail program, such as Hotmail, Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora or Netscape.

In MSN 8:
In your MSN mail Inbox, click on "E-mail settings" on the left side of the screen.
Click on "Writing E-mail Settings" second on the list.
Click on "Text Formatting", the 4th item.
At the "How Do You Want To Format Your Messages" box, click on "Use Plain Text for Compatibility...", the second button. In addition, choose the default encoding, "Western European ISO".
Save changes at the bottom of the screen.
 

Any problems? Who to contact

If you have submitted a message to the Group but it has not yet been posted, please wait 48 hours before sending a query message to the Moderator

The Discussion Group is moderated by volunteers.  Whilst they aim to moderate/release messages at least once a day (and often several times a day), on rare occasions demands on their time or technical problem are such that this may not be possible.  In these circumstances, a deputy Moderator will normally pick up the duties on the following day. Furthermore, it is also possible that your message has been referred for further review/permission before it can be posted (eg a query over copyright) which can delay posting.  Hence our request that you wait a full 48 hours before contacting us.

If you are having "technical problems" maintaining your account or posting a message please re-read Sections 2, 3 and 7.  If you are still having problems then contact the Technical Support Manager

If any of the following apply then please contact the Moderator
- for further guidance on how to compose postings and which postings are allowed.
- if you believe that the list is being abused or inappropriate messages are being posted.
- if you have any suggestions for improving these guidelines or the way that the list is run.

If you disagree with the Moderator then you may contact the Chairman of the Computer Committee explaining why you are dissatisfied with any decision.

Enjoy using YOUR Discussion Group.

Remember that the address jgsgb-discuss@lyris.jewishgen.org should only be used for messages that you wish to be published to all subscribers
on the list  jgsgb-online so please use that address with great care!

Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Copyright © 1992-2008 Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain. In addition, certain items on the website may also be copyright of the original compiler or contributor. 'JGSGB is a UK Registered Charity No.1022738'