ROOTS-L: The Internet's First Genealogy Mailing List

ROOTS-L is a mailing list for people who are interested in any or all aspects of genealogy, anywhere in the world. We're the original Internet genealogical mailing list (our first messages were posted in 1987), and the largest. But that doesn't mean we're not interested in new faces, new queries, new knowledge. Please join us!

To subscribe, just send an e-mail to [email protected] with the message

subscribe

To later unsubscribe (yes, not everyone chooses to stay with us), just send to that same address the message

unsubscribe

If you'd prefer digest mode instead of mail mode (single messages), send your subscribe message instead to [email protected]. For more information, you might want to consult our Welcome File for more details, or our various help files.

ROOTS-L Files and Databases

Over the years, various people have voluntarily started and maintained a collection of files and databases in cooperation with other ROOTS-L participants. These include:

The RootsWeb Surname List or RSL, a list of over half a million surnames and contact information for the 85000 people researching them. The RSL may be interactively searched. See FAMILY.README for more information.
ROOTS-L Library: One of the most important resources associated with ROOTS-L is our library of text files. There are hundreds of them, including a fabulous collection devoted to obtaining vital records, others with useful tips for beginners, book lists from the Library of Congress, etc.
The Roots Location List or RLL, a list of locations of special interest to individual researchers, along with contact information for those researchers.
GENSERV, a massive database comprised of over eleven thousand GEDCOMs.
The U. S. Civil War Units file
Books We Own: Books and other genealogical resources owned by Internet genealogists, in which, under certain restrictions, they are willing to do lookups.
United States Resources: A web page for every state in the United States, with over fifty links per state to genealogical and historical resources.

ROOTS-L Messages and Archives

Monthly indexes, with links to the messages listed therein.
RootsWeb has placed on the Web a searchable archive of our messages, from the beginning of ROOTS-L in 12 Dec 1987 to October 2006.

Other Genealogy Web Pages

There are so many good ones, I despair of listing them all! Here are a few I visit all the time, and they're all excellent launchpads to others.

The RAND Genealogy Club (listed first 'cause that RAND place paid my salary, though not to do genealogy.)

Linkpendium (over 5 million genealogy links categorized by surname and United States county)

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet (an amazing collection of over 80 gazillion or so links and still growing...)

Genealogy Trails

ROOTS-L History

ROOTS-L started out as a LISTSERV mailing list at NDSU in late 1987. Yup, that means we'll soon be 20 years old!

Anyhow, after several contented years at NDSU, in August, 1995, we moved to the then new LISTSERV at eWorld. In July of 1996, the list again moved, hopefully for the last time (this business of moving mailing lists around isn't nearly as fun as they say, trust me!), to a SmartList mailing list hosted by RootsWeb. (Not to put too fine a point on it, but that was more or less the formal start of RootsWeb.) And in October 2006, RootsWeb upgraded us from SmartList to MailMan software.

The other major change was due to a poll taken in early 1996, which indicated an high level of support for the screening messages, to eliminate LISTSERV commands, reposted digests, etc. So after redesigning the system we use for screening to expedite the approval of messages and protect against losing them, all ROOTS-L messages are prescreened.