DOs
DON'Ts
How to Join or Leave the List
Addresses of the List Archives

There is a mailing list, hosted by Rootsweb, dedicated to STEER family history. Membership of the mailing list is free and enables you ask questions, answer questions or provide information. The list has been effectively operating since June 2001 in which time there have been a couple of thousand messages all of which are available in the list archives.

The list has well over a hundred members from many parts of the world who are interested in their own and other Steer families, there is a wealth of experience and knowledge which is gladly shared. If you are interested in finding out more about your Steer family, or have information that you'd like to share, then we'd be pleased to hear from you.

The list has two types of membership, List Mode and Digest Mode. List Mode membership means that you will receive a copy of every message when it is posted to the list, including your own messages. Digest Mode members will receive the same information but delayed by few days with recent messages delivered in a single digest. Both classes of members can post messages to the list.

The best advice is to provide as much information as you can when asking a question and to have a suitable subject line; give names, place, country and time period, or as much of these as you know. What won't fit on to the subject line can go into the body of the message, give details of what you know and what you don't know. It is customary to put other surnames, e.g. spouses names in capital letters.

It is often easy to send a message to the list by replying to a previous one, which is fine but please change the subject line to something appropriate. This should always be done by digest members.

If you are new to mailing lists then you may want to join to see some other messages before joining in.

Don't shy away from asking a question or responding to one because you think that other list members know more than you. You may have some vital piece of information that the rest of us don't know. Anyone with experience recognises that they were novices once and welcomes new researchers.

Use your "Reply All" option when responding to a message. If you use just "Reply" then your message will go only to the person who sent the original message and not to the list for others to see.

Keep it friendly. Observe usual courtesies.

Please do not subscribe to this list, or another Rootsweb list, using an email account that is protected by spam blocking systems (not the same as spam filtering). Spam blocking is where you have paid for a service that blocks all emails from a new sender until the new sender responds to challenge sent by the spam blocking system. Spam blocking does not work with mailing lists. Some messages are sent automatically by computers which will not know how to respond to a spam blocking challenge; you may then not receive the message. Spam blocking systems will also send a challenge to all other list members who post messages to the list, it is unreasonable to expect that other members will all respond to the challenge, you will then not receive all the messages. If you use spam blockers then it is best to set up another email account specifically for use with mailing lists.

If you want to leave the mailing list don't send unsubcribe requests to the list, you need to send the message to the list-request address, see below.

To join STEER-List Mode or STEER-Digest Mode click either of these as appropriate:

If this doesn't work then to join STEER-List Mode, send an email to STEER-L-request@rootsweb.com with the single word subscribe in the message subject and body. To join STEER-Digest Mode, do the same thing with STEER-D-request@rootsweb.com.

When you subscribe you will get a welcome message and you can participate in the list by sending emails to STEER-L@rootsweb.com, if you use this address and you have not subscribed then the email will be sent to me as the list adminstrator.

To leave STEER-List Mode or STEER-Digest Mode click either of these as appropriate:

If this doesn't work then to leave STEER-List Mode, send an e mail to STEER-L-request@rootsweb.com with the single word unsubscribe in the message subject and body. To leave STEER-Digest Mode, do the same thing with STEER-D-request@rootsweb.com.

The list archives can be searched by year or browsed by calandar month, respectively the links are: