Using Nebraska Mailing Lists

Mailing lists were one of the first forms of mass communication and sharing for genealogists.  By joining a mailing list somebody might find your information, be able to help you locate information and have ideas for your research.  Today they seem to have taken a backseat to other phases of Internet.  Mailings lists are still a viable way to share, search and locate ancestral information.  It may take months or years before somebody sees your archived post to a mailing list, but it is worth the wait.

A link to Nebraska mailing lists hosted by RootsWeb can be found at Nebraska Mailing Lists.  Some of the available lists are by county and others by topic.  Some of the topics include Cemeteries, Lookups, Czechs, Freedmen, Old News, Roll Call Nebraska, Gen-Societies, Vintage Photos, NE Roots, West NE, and Ghosttowns.  A list and description of Nebraska mailing lists is also at Genealogy Resources on Internet.  Many of the Nebraska USGenWeb pages have county links to mailing lists.

When you decide upon one or more Nebraska mailing list of interest, consider if you want to subscribe by having single e-mails sent or if you want them grouped together in digest format.  You can always change your mind later.  Some mailing lists have a lot of activity and others do not.  You may be the first person to join and post to since 2008!  Once you have joined a mailing list, you can wait for the emails to arrive or you can immediately start your own thread and send a message to the subscribers.

From the link you used to join, there are options under each mailing list.  You can search the archives from the list or browse them.  To get a better idea of the list activity, date of last post and context of the posts, click on browse.  By doing this before subscribing to the mailing list, you will have a better idea of the activity of the mailing list.  If you have a specific interest, search the archives for names, locations or topics.  Later if you don't want to be subscribed to the mailing list, go back to where you joined and follow the instructions for unsubscribing.

Let the fun begin ... start browsing, searching and subscribing!