The SOSFHCG-L Mailing List is an e-mail list for anyone with computer/genealogical interests in the county of Essex in England. Subscriptions to the List are free of charge. By subscribing to the List, you will receive e-mail messages from other genealogists and family historians with roots in Essex. Participation in the List's discussions is welcomed. Ideas for messages to List can include:

• The Essex surnames you are researching.
• Queries regarding Essex individuals or families.
• Questions or information regarding Essex localities.
• Questions or information regarding Family History Computer Programs.
• Questions or information about Essex genealogical research.
• Questions or information regarding problems with computer programs to help with your Family History Quest.
• Requests for or offers of help on Essex genealogical research.
• Tips & tricks regarding Essex genealogical research that you'd like to share with everyone.
• Tips & tricks regarding any computer program that you'd like to share with everyone.

The SOSFHCG-L Mailing List is an extremely friendly and supportive forum for Essex research. By sharing information on our Essex heritage, we may all help one another with our genealogical research. We are a newly formed group of friends trying to grow together, we will not tolerate breaches of nettiquette within the group.

Should at any time a member of the list start making bad remarks about any member of the list or members of SOSFHCG or ESFH, they will be told to stop. If they fail to do so their name will be taken off the list for a period of not less them three months.

Anyone with genealogical interests in Essex may become a subscriber to the SOSFHCG-L Mailing List. For more online resources for Essex genealogy, visit the GENUKI Essex web site. Also, be sure to visit the Essex Family History Society's web page for information on the benefits of Society membership for Essex researchers.

For information on other county-specific mailing lists for United Kingdom & Ireland genealogy, see John Fuller's Geographic/Non-USA Mailing Lists web page.

Mailing Lists for UK and Ireland counties may also be found on a county-by-county basis at GENUKI's Mailing Lists page.

To post a message to the SOSFHCG-L Mailing List which will be seen by all other List subscribers, send an e-mail to:

You need not be a subscriber to the SOSFHCG-L Mailing List in order to post a message. If you post a message and are not a subscriber, please mention in your message that you wish replies to be sent to your personal e-mail address and not to the List.

Please feel free to post an introductory message and share your Essex surnames with us.

To subscribe to the Individual Message Mode for the mailing list, send an e-mail message to:

and in the body of your message type only the following word:

subscribe

Anything you put in the subject line will be ignored.

Be sure not to use any signature file with this e-mail.

- OR -

To subscribe to the Digest Mode for the mailing list, send an e-mail message to:

and in the body of your message type only the following word:

subscribe

Anything you put in the subject line will be ignored.

Be sure not to use any signature file with this e-mail.

The Digest Mode gets all of the same messages as Individual Message Mode but bundles them into a single message every 18 hours or so. The Digest message for that period has a handy Subject Line index at the top which lists the Subject Lines for each of the individual messages which that Digest contains. It makes for very quick scanning for topics of interest.

To unsubscribe from the list, send an e-mail message to:

- OR -

and in the body of your message type only the following word:

unsubscribe

Anything you put in the subject line will be ignored.

Be sure not to use any signature file with this e-mail.

The SOSFHCG Mailing List is programmed to automatically unsubscribe any e-mail address to which it is unable to successfully deliver e-mail messages after four attempts. This inability to deliver e-mail messages is usually the result of server problems at your local ISP, e-mailboxes with limited storage capacity becoming too full and thus refusing additional messages, connectivity problems across the Internet between RootsWeb and your ISP's server, or any number of other problems.

You'll notice this has happened if you haven't received e-mail from the SOSFHCG Mailing List for over 24 hours. The Mailing List is large enough that there is always daily message traffic. The Digest version generates a new Digest every 18 hours. So, if you haven't heard from the SOSFHCG Mailing List in over a day, here's what to do.

Simply re-subscribe by following the subscription instructions above. You can't hurt anything by re-subscribing. If you've been automatically unsubscribed, re-subscribing will get you back on the List. If you're still on the List, you'll receive a brief e-mail message titled "Already on the SOSFHCG-L List".

Subscribers often ask how they can relocate past messages which have appeared on the SOSFHCG-L Mailing List.

There are two methods for reviewing past messages on this mailing list. Both of which are excellent research tools for finding information on past discussions of particular surnames, places, and events if you were not subscribed at the time the discussions occurred.

1. The basic searchable archives for the SOSFHCG-L Mailing List have been automatically archived since 2001. You can search these archives (or any other RootsWeb mailing list which as been archived) by the keywords which you are interested in. Point your web browser at:

   Top RootsWeb Mailing List Search: Essex

   You will then see a new page on which you can enter your specific query in the Query box provided. Your query should be a simple one or two word search. Radio buttons will allow you to select the year in which you wish to search. Then press the Search button and you will receive a new page with up to 50 results which match your query. Select the Full link below each result returned to view the entire message.

2. The Threaded Archives for the SOSFHCG-L Mailing List have been archived since April of 1999. Threaded means that they are loosely organized by discussion topic. This is done by an automated system which looks for similar subject lines in messages and groups them together.

   To access the Threaded Archives for the first time, point your web browser at:

   The RootsWeb Threaded Archives

   and follow the "Everyone should go here first" link. RootsWeb has instituted a user name and password scheme in order to keep spammers from harvesting e-mail addresses from the threaded archives. This is purely for the protection of your own privacy. Pick a good user name and password (do not use any that you may currently be using with your ISP or others). Each time you visit, you will be asked for this user ID / password combination so make it something memorable.

   For the Essex Threaded Archives, point your web browser at:

   SOSFHCG-L Mailing List Archives

   Select the month you wish to view and browse away. From each of these pages, you can search the entire Threaded Archives of the RootsWeb mailing lists or all the Threaded Archives of SOSFHCG-L using the search boxes at the top of each page.