WELCOME

Welcome to the 13th issue of the quarterly online newsletter supplement to "Self Portraits: The Self Family NetLetter," the Website dedicated to Self family research at http://www.selfroots.com

You are receiving this newsletter because you were kind enough to join "Self Seekers: The Self Family Association." We appreciate all of your contributions, large and small, and we hope you will continue to support our page, our surname list, and this newsletter.

...it means that we have now officially entered the "New Millennium." There was such a difference of opinion--Did the "New Millennium" begin last year as part of the Y2K package? Or did it begin this morning at 12:01? Well, it probably doesn't matter because whether you think it was last year or this year, we're in it now for sure! It's a whole new millennium for Selfs: new faces will appear in these next thousand years, and they'll learn more and more about those older faces who smile forever in eternity. What will life be like for our Selfs in the centuries to come? For those of us ancient enough to remember the 1950s, we can also recall the optimistic view of the future--space ships, rockets going to other worlds just like shuttles go to the airport, more leisure time, jet-powered cars. Will this still happen for our descendants, or will the world become overcrowded and chaotic with shortages of all major needs such as food and power? The Selfs are such a large extended family--existing genetically in many surnames in thousands of households--that we have the chance to impart the values to our children and grandchildren that were handed down to us by our Self ancestors. They survived many hardships and pioneered into new locations--their lives were different yet similar. Let's all hope that through our mutual interest in genealogy we can make the world a better, more stable place in the years to come, years filled with respect for others and continued love of our Selfs so that when we are "ancestors," we can rest peacefully, knowing we did the best we could for our descendants.

In the meantime, we are proud to be a very large repository of Self information. With three domains, a second Webpage at RootsWeb, a GenConnect Board and a suite of cluster pages at RootsWeb (see the link on "Self Portraits"), a Listserv, a Collaboration Surname list on the LDS "Family Search" site, a site on "My Family.com," well over 5,000 pages of connected and unconnected Self lines, and over 1100 valid e-mail correspondents willing to share information, we are well able to help you with your family research. We are also the Surname Resource Center (SRC) for the surnames of Self, Selfe, and Selph. We also host SelfSite at RootsWeb, an extension of Self Portraits containing our Census pages as well as state-by-state and county-by-county "loose ends," Selfs presently unconnected to any of the major branches. Family Record Online enumerates families presented on our Self Family of the Week page. And each time a new "Self Seekers" newsletter is released, we upload the one for the same month from the past year to our public page for all cousins to enjoy.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

We would like to have your gedcom so that we can add your information to our database. With your permission, we will also list and distribute your gedcom on request (but only with your permission). Please send us gedcoms so that we can start a library that will help others. If you've already submitted one, kindly re-send so that we will have the latest information. We would appreciate being kept informed of new family members as well as other changes.

If you haven't joined our Self Surname Mailing List yet, please subscribe. Instructions will be found on the main page of our Website. Note that we also host the Swindle, Eden, Edens, Cease, Breeze, Brezee, and Salazar Surname Lists as well as listservs for Erath County, TX., King County, TX., Bossier Parish, LA., Murray County, GA., Grayson County, TX., and Clay County, NC. In addition, we host the King County, TX, Murray County, GA, and Clay County, NC USGenWeb sites. Our three county sites join "Self Portraits" in featuring a handy search engine for locating topics discussed in previous messages posted to their corresponding listserv--please click on the button directly beneath the instructions for joining the listserv on the main page of each site.

Membership fees remain the same in 2001: Regular Member, $12 and Charter Member, $25. If you are a Patron Member, your initial contribution is gratefully acknowledged and good for the lifetime of the "Self Seekers" association. We would appreciate payment of these fees by January 31, 2001.

Remember the July 1998 issue? Remember all the wonderful photographs, articles, and genealogy? We can't do it without your help. PLEASE contribute something. Photographs, articles, family trees, and reunion recaps will be gratefully received and enjoyed by everyone.

Do you have Self ancestors who were in trouble with the law? We know of a few colorful Selfs (both innocent and guilty), but we'd like to know of more. Don't be embarrassed by those long-ago ancestors--it appears that most of them raised law-abiding children who, in turn, produced some of the nicest descendants! The reward? An article in one of our upcoming newsletters. Names and/or e-mail addresses will only be published if you specifically give permission for us to do so.

Are you serious about genealogy?

Not just about verifying names and dates--but really serious about genealogy?

If so, you may be one of the most valuable resources that your cousins will ever have. Sure, contributing a gedcom or telling a story or two will always make friends out of relatives. But the key really lies in how quickly you respond to questions that others ask of you. "He who hesitates is lost," goes the old saying. But in genealogy, he who hesitates can often discourage someone who is just starting out on that arduous climb up the family tree.

For some time now, the best advice we've offered to the Webmasters of new family/surname sites is to keep up with their e-mail. No fancy fonts, no pretty graphics, no clever javascript applets can ever take the place of communication with one's visitors. The individuals they're researching may not be in your line--they may not even be the right surname--but some reply, even a friendly "form message," will still be appreciated.

Many of you don't even have a Web page yet. Your e-mail inquires come from cousins we've referred to you or from people who are responding to queries you've posted on our GenConnect Board, on "Find YourSelf," or on USGenWeb County pages and other genealogy sites. Someone may even connect with your name because it appears on a Website devoted to an entirely different subject. But the same advice applies: please answer your mail! And please encourage your correspondents as much as you can, even if you can't help them directly.

You may wonder why I chose to present this topic at this time. The answer is simple: I've been bitten by the genealogy bug. Despite being a genealogist for the past 41 years, I've never investigated my own family. My mother has been in poor health recently. To cheer her up a bit, I agreed to begin research on my father's family. This chore presents some difficulties: he was an orphan, he apparently was given the wrong surname at birth, and going back beyond his parents requires viewing that non-existent 1890 Census. So I need to get information from many unusual sources, and that generates quite a bit of correspondence.

From our vantage point within the framework of "Self Portraits," we view genealogy from a different perspective than most of our cousins do. First, we see the Self family as beginning (for now until we someday find that elusive English link) with Olde Robert Selfe and expanding infinitely toward the future. Second, we have almost 1200 individual corresponding cousins, but together you all make up one group--our extended family--and we often have to switch the focus from the personal to the collective and back again. Suddenly, my own viewpoint has become the same as yours. I'm trying to start with mySelf and go backwards in time with individuals rather than working within a group situation: once I find my entire line I can then begin to fill in the various "branches" on my "tree." And, for the first time, I'm initiating requests for assistance instead of waiting for people to come to us--a whole different perspective on the same process.

It was a shocking disappointment to me to learn that people don't answer their e-mail. Replying to e-mail can only benefit the respondent: an individual can meet new cousins and contacts; a business will create goodwill and perhaps gain a new customer. But there are still some people and places that have never written back to me. I've had the best luck with libraries--it may take a week or two, but all have replied, some offering to copy materials (not necessarily through Interlibrary Loan) and even do some research for free or for a small token fee. Businesses almost never respond to e-mail. Writing to say "Hi! I noticed that the name of your family business begins with my grandmother's surname" has elicited no response. And the sad part is that these same people are almost never listed in online telephone directories, so their business is the only available point of contact. The same is true of societies. I wrote to the local chapter of the Society of Architects in my georgraphic area of interest, and I have yet to hear anything from them. It took both a Chamber of Commerce and a newspaper quite a while to reply, and then they referred me to other sources.

Almost as bad as a non-responsive e-mail address is one that doesn't work at all. If you have ever used FamilyTreeMaker.com or Ancestry.com to search for your ancestors, you may have come across some of the many invalid e-mail addresses on sites that live there. We have the usual problem with cousins who post to our "Find YourSelf" sub-page--a year or two may pass before someone reads their queries and wants to correspond with the posting cousin. Sometimes when they write to us ("Webmaster"), we have to explain regretfully that the e-mail address is no longer good and we can't help them contact the person they're seeking. To have an entire FTM site online and forget about updating it is not a wise thing to do. There's also a trend nowadays for people to simply omit an address of any kind. I'm not sure why they do this, but it gives the impression that they don't want to be bothered with questions, comments, and even new information from others.

You have a life--unlike me, you don't roll out of bed and into the desk chair and sit in front of the computer night and day both at work and at home. You can't be expected to answer messages immediately, and a day or two may go by before you even read them. That's no problem--it's still a lot better than snail mail. But here is a summary of what you should do to help those hopeful cousins out there:

1. Answer all of your e-mail.

2. If you need more time to research, if you'll be out of town for awhile, or if you work long hours, just send a brief reply stating that you received the message and will get back to the sender at a later (but not too much later) time.

3. If you receive a message at work but your company has a policy against writing private e-mail on the job, forward that message to yourSelf at home and then reply.

4. If someone writes to your Self-owned business and inquires about your surname, reply courteously with as much or as little information as you want to give out--but do reply.

5. If you do volunteer work at a historical or genealogical society, reply to all e-mail questions. Your organization's policy may not include doing research or answering reference questions in-depth, but if you can state your limitations clearly and perhaps recommend another source, it will be appreciated.

6. If you have a Website, update it often--especially if your e-mail address changes. If maintaining a site is a real burden to you, it is better to remove the site from Cyberspace.

7. Finally, remember where you've posted and update your e-mail address on all postings if it changes.

More than names, more than dates, more than anything--courteous, timely responses to e-mail will make friends. You never know when you may need these contacts in the future. People who have been encouraged in their research efforts rather than discouraged and angered by the lack of responsiveness will know that you are indeed serious about genealogy.

My father was orphaned at an early age. Fortunately for me, he was never legally adopted--if he had been, his birth records would have been sealed (according to NY law) and I might never have known who my grandparents were. Legally, this practice is supposed to guarantee privacy for all parties involved in the adoption transaction. Emotionally, it is a confirmation that the adopted child is now part of a family that is, for all intents and purposes, his own.

But where is the place of the adopted child in the family tree of his new parents?

We've seen this issue handled in different ways within different gedcoms or reports, and yet we have never seen it mentioned in articles in print or online.

There are the absolute purists who feel that only biological children are truly part of one's genealogy. Even if the child entered the family at a very young age and has known no other parents or siblings, he is still not technically a descendant of the progenitor of the family being researched. These people tend to leave out adopted children entirely when creating a report or group sheet for distribution on the Web.

Some people take the opposite point of view: an adopted child is just like "blood." When he enters the household and takes on the surname of his new family, he also inherits all the ancestors that come with it. He's not unlike a spouse who becomes part of one's genealogy by marrying into it. Should he later be reunited with his biological parents, he will simply belong to two families through the bond of love.

The middle of the road approach is to list an adopted child with his adoptive parents in the genealogical record and use a note to state that his relationship is not biological. His descendants may or may not enumerated, but he is forever recorded as being part of his new family.

This article is not intended to recommend any of the three approaches listed above. Rather, we would like to know how you feel. Please take the time to send us e-mail stating whether you use option 1, 2, or 3 in your records and any comments you might want to add, especially if you choose #3--do you list the descendants of the adopted child? We won't release your name, but we will give a short statistical report in the next newsletter stating what percentage of "Self Seekers" members replied and what percentages of the total the answers comprise. We'll accept e-mail on this subject through Feb. 15, 2001--the cutoff date is necessary for writing a small article about the findings.

We hope you have fun participating...

Maybe your ancestors used to tell stories about life in the "old days," stories you remember hearing as a child. Please tell us about them. We will even supply editing and formatting; but we'd all love to know about daily life in the Self families of old--and you may be able to help. Please contact us. And please state that your story is specifically for the newsletter.

====================================================================

Back to Menu

Go to Index

Go to Self Portraits