Now you can read all your favorite genealogy newsgroups right off this page!
Thanks to Google.com, you can now read threaded discussions of any known genealogy newsgroup via Google Groups and click back to this page for further reading of other newsgroups. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can come back to access other newsgroups you are interested in.
If, for any reason, your news server does not carry a particular newsgroup you are interested in, register for Google Groups posting at the link on the page you get from clicking any of the links below.
Note: While Google Groups removes virtually all spam, you may still see the occasional spam get by. Generally, however, that is rare.
I now have virtually all the known genealogy newsgroups on this page in the following order:
If you know of a newsgroup that is not on this list so far, please let me know at the email address at the bottom of this page.
Click on a link to go to that newsgroup. If a link does not work, it probably means Google Groups is down which is rare. If it brings up a 'group does not exist' error, it probably is due to the fact that there either is a bug or in the case of dejanews.members.soc.genealogy.* groups it is a new group that will soon be online, usually within 12 hours of creation.
Also, on occasion, you will find a 'no new articles' page come up when you click on a link. That is because of one of two reasons--either no one has posted to the group recently or because of a bug. This is especially true of the smaller local and foreign language groups, or the alt.family-names.* groups, as they often see only a few posts on an irregular basis.
The Deja.com service started out being an archives for Usenet messages and to this day is the only such archives known. Recently, they had to move the entire operation to a new facility. That necessitated them taking all the old messages prior to September 1999 offline for an extended but temporary time period. They are working to get those messages back online so watch the Deja.com site and this page for future announcements.
Note on alt.family-names.* groups: There are also problems with off-topic posts on a few of them, and those groups affected are mentioned just prior to the alt.family-names.* listings on this page. Simply ignore the off-topic posts and feel free to post genealogy-related matter to them if you have interests in those groups. There is a link to the alt.family-names.* FAQ also, and the link is also found just before the alt.family-names.* newsgroups. Please read that FAQ for more info.
Deja News member forum discussions: (please feel free to start using these groups and start up the discussions. If a group does not show up, it may be because Deja News is down or the group is so new it hasn't had time to have the first introductory message show up yet. I often will place new groups in this section as soon as I have created them).
To post to a dejanews.members.soc.genealogy.* or deja.comm.* group, you need to be a registered My Deja News user. To register, click on the My Deja News link found on most of the Deja News pages you see when you click on any link below.
Note: As of 28 April 2001, the ENTIRE Deja.com archive is now back online at Google. Until I can find a way to ret specific newsgroups just click on any link to get to the main page. All 650 million articles (including several million genealogy-related articles) can now be searched at Google, many for the first time in years!
You can also post to all but the deja.* or dejanews.* newsgroups by sending the post from any email client to name.of.group@mailgate.org. Example: alt.genealogy@mailgate.org for alt.genealogy. You may still subscribe to any that have gatewayed mailing lists also, but for the occasional single post where you don't want to subscribe to the list the Mailgate emailing function works well.
Posting via Google is now here! go to Google Groups for more details.
The Deja News Member forums are found exclusively at Deja News. a link is at the end of this page which goes to the main Deja News site where you can get more details about the Deja News service. In essence, Deja News is akin to a BBS message board in this respect since the groups are specific to the site. Similar to the IGA_Net message boards in that regard.
As of September 25th, 2000, the communities associated with the deja.comm.* and dejanews.comm.* groups will be defunct, but the groups will still be there. I have preserved links to all that are known to me here for those who used or ran those communities. Feel free to use these groups.
Family organization newsgroup/forums on Deja News. Some of these have to do with genealogy, some initially do not but they are good resources should you need to find a particular family ancestor they may be just what you are looking for for help!
If you come across another family organization Deja News Member Forum or regional or topical Deja News Member Forum, please let me know and I will add it to the list above.
alt.genealogy/soc.genealogy.* newsgroups. Probably the best known of the genealogy newsgroups.
Defunct soc.genealogy.* groups archived at Deja News. These groups have since split into other groups found above but the archives remain for you to browse. To access the archived articles, type the newsgroup name after ~g and a space in any search box (not the search in... boxes that appear with each newsgroups entries) on many search results pages or the main Deja News page at the link below. I have also placed links to Rootsweb beside the groups below as they have archives that in both cases predate Deja News in coverage of the two groups.
Miscelaneous, Regional, and foreign-language genealogy and genealogy-related newsgroups found at Deja.com.
The following regional/local genealogy newsgroups are NOT presently found at Deja News. If Deja News ever adds them to their newsgroup feed and archives them, I'll add them to the list above.
The alt.family-names.* newsgroups hierarchy. Finding these on many servers is a hit or miss proposition. Some of the larger ISPs have them but some do not. Some even carry only a few scattered groups. However, Deja News does carry all the groups shown below so reading and posting via Deja News is about the best way possible to utilize these groups.
Because of a spam problem that is evident to any who have read these groups via a normal newsreader, it is definitely better to read the groups via Deja News because of Deja News' being able to remove virtually all spam.
There is also a problem with newsgroup hijackers in the following groups: alt.family-names.cavolick, alt.family-names.cavolack, alt.family-names.gates, alt.family-names.jackson, alt.family-names.manson (some of the off-topic posts in alt.family-names.manson could be vulgar), and alt.family-names.sims. So be aware there may be some non-spam off-topic posts in these groups along with the legitimate genealogy postings. For a general FAQ, please go to my alt.family-names.* Newsgroups FAQ at this link.
Other newsgroups in allied fields. While not specifically related to genealogy they may have some value to finding out matters that may related to finding an ancestor.