usenet news soc.genealogy.medieval

Frequently Asked Questions for soc.genealogy.medieval

soc.genealogy.medieval is an unmoderated newsgroup for the discussion of genealogy and family history among people researching individuals who lived in medieval times. The primary focus of the group is likely to be on Europe and neighboring regions, but postings about genealogy in other areas during this time period are welcomed.

The mailing list associated with the soc.genealogy.medieval newsgroup is GEN-MEDIEVAL. The newsgroup and mailing list are gated, i.e., all email sent to the mailing list also appears as a posting in the newsgroup, and all postings in the newsgroup (except those that originated with the mailing list) are emailed to the mailing list. See question 2 for information about subscribing to the mailing list.

All who have access to soc.genealogy.medieval or GEN-MEDIEVAL and are interested in genealogy in the medieval period are are welcome to participate.

The medieval period is loosely defined for the purposes of this group as the period extending from the breakup of the (Western) Roman Empire until the time public records (such as church, tax, and census records) relating to the general population began to be kept. This period would extend roughly from AD 500 to AD 1600, but these limits are not intended to exclude related topics of discussion lying outside of these boundaries, e.g., royal or noble genealogy in earlier time periods. A related mailing list is the GEN-ROYAL list, and questions relating solely to royal genealogy after about AD 1600 should be raised there.

The scope of the group reflects the different nature of genealogical research in the medieval period. Vital records and census records are not available for this period, and the researcher must rely instead on records of inheritance of property or tenancy, heraldic visitations, monastic charters, chronicles, onomastic evidence, and even numismatic evidence. The group is intended to address all these various facets.

• To search the GEN-MEDIEVAL mailing list archives, go to http://searches.rootsweb.com/gen-medieval.html

  A second archive, established in May 1999, threads the messages posted to GEN-MEDIEVAL since then. It is available at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/GEN-MEDIEVAL-L/. A description of both of these, along with the appropriate links, can be found at http://www.rootsweb.com/~medieval/arch.htm.

• Go to http://groups.google.com/groups?group=soc.genealogy.medieval to search the soc.genealogy.medieval newsgroup archives, which, due to a gating problem between the mailing list and the newsgroup, should contain the same set of messages from 24 January 1998 to now (the gating was unreliable prior to that). Be sure you click on "Search only in soc.genealogy.medieval", then enter your query in the query box, and click on "Google Search". All of the discussions on soc.genealogy.medieval are also available on that webpage, the most recent first.