In addition, you must first know the name of the mailing list that you wish to search. In addition to surname related lists, there are regional, country, state, county, ethnic group, and topic-related lists. Do not forget to search all the years for which the list has been archived. When choosing a promising list to search, it pays to be creative and thorough. When looking for a particular ancestor, check out not only surname-related lists but also lists that relate to country of origin, places of habitation, migration routes, ethnic group, UseNet NewsGroup topics, and general interest topics.
Wonderful gems turn up in the most unlikely places.
Nevertheless, please remember that one must often mine a great deal of ore in order to find a diamond. This capability is very useful for more common search names or keywords. 597 Mittelstadt citations on RootsWeb on 26 December 1999, ALL free of charge all of the time.