Also sprach Pat Cotter on 30 May 97 at 15:37 about Re: Germany Genealogy Pages:

I don't disagree with all you said. I have linked to some pages that have no genealogical content but mainly because I could find no pages for those areas that were on genealogy. I think that will change but for now some of the people who have asked me for help don't seem to have a clue as to where their town is, what that area is like, etc.

Pat, but you don't say what you "do" disagree with. :-) You probably also know that those type of questions are the daily norm in sgg. Mostly a quick trip to a library would help. :-)

I do have mixed feelings about doing links like this and may not keep them. Especially now that I have found a few better ones - see http://www.rheine.de/vereine/ahnen/ahnen.html for example.

Yes, but these are all links which already exist in www.genealogy.com We get notes to please link this or that site to the German genealogy pages all the time. If they have genealogy in them we tend to put them into an appropriate place where others may be able to find them.

My main focus is to help people identify where their ancestors are from and learn more about the area and hopefully make contacts with others researching the same towns/surnames. I know this works because I was just contacted by a man from Dollendorf (where I have ancestors) - turns out he's a sixth cousin not only to me, but to two others who discovered me through my personal genealogy pages (neither of whom appears to be related to me). As a result of our discovery of each other, one man has decided to transcribe all the records from Dollendorf and nearby towns.

That's the beauty of the net but to transcribe all records of a town or village can take many years of work and only an experienced genealogists can appreciate the work involved. I have a friend who's been working in Essen/Oldenburg for 20 years and is still not done.

Other people have figured out for the first time where their people are from.

Happens every day.

I didn't join GermanyGenWeb at first - in fact I wrote to volunteer to work on a region (Eifel or NRWF) for German Genealogy Pages and got<bold> no </bold>response. I took that to mean that I wasn't wanted.

Do you have any idea to whom you wrote? I'm the chief recruiter, among other hats I hold, and I have possible relatives living in the Eifel region today. I was there interviewing them just two years ago. I think I would have responded to a volunteer for the area.

I've had an Eifel information page for awhile and haven't seen anything developed in either of those areas on your pages - so I just joined what I am doing now.

Precisely why we don't want this type of splintering going on. The Eifel is not a political region but it certainly is a Landschaft and needs to be treated within the realm of where it belonged politically. First it would have to be finished in the geographical region are where all we have is this: Eifel Description: Eifel is the name of a plateau which is bordered on the southeast by the Moselle (Mosel) River, on the west by the Ardennes and Belgium, on the northeast by the Rhine River. It is a largely barren upland covered by moors. The highest point is the Hohe Acht at 2447 feet (746 meters). Volcanic cones and craters are to be found, as were once lead and iron ores. The region is today part of the state of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate). Some towns in this region are Bad Münstereifel and Blankenheim. History: Today: See Rhineland-Palatinate. You can see that is not much. Then, of course, the real genealogy would be covered in the Rheinland-Pfalz section.

However, if you can tell me more of what you are looking for - I'd like to know what you have in mind for each regional area.

I review of what we have shows the style of pages we're trying to adhere to. At the moment everybody seems to be an vacation and the pages were just relocated on a new server but do take a look at http://www.genealogy.com/gene/tmp/up/pages/ where you'll find maintenance and xland pages which offer some direction as to what we are doing. Fred Fred Rump http://www.k2nesoft.com/~fred 26 Warren St Beverly, NJ 08010 fred@compu.com or 609-386-6846 fred@k2nesoft.com