Over the years, Clinton Co. researchers have had multiple ways to submit a searchable-on-line* query or comment. These many different choices have led to a lot of confusion, but bear with us and we will try to explain.
First, take a look at the following ways to view queries:
- The Clinton County
ILGenWeb Project Query Page
This is a page on this website. We have just started using this page again in 2008 after a 5 year pause. The Archives from 1998 to 2003 are also on-line. The Query page has the advantage of making the query available to the people just browsing through the site. Queries posted here will be searchable from the site search engine* located on the Clinton County ILGenWeb Project Homepage. The disadvantage is that this page must be manually updated by our webmaster. If he/she is not available, you may have to wait for some time to have your query appear. - The
Clinton County Illinois Mailing List
This list, hosted by Rootsweb, currently has over 160 members. Your single email to this list is forwarded to those members and also filed in the archives. You can Search the Archives or Browse the Archives. These archives contain over 4,500 messages posted from 1998 to the present. The advantages of the Clinton County Illinois Mailing List is that your queries are automatically posted, archived, and emailed to list members. The List also has a good search engine and is also very visible in search engines like Google and Yahoo! The disadvantages are: You MUST be a Member to Post (Don't worry, it is not that difficult and we will explain it below.); and the entries will not appear in searches of this website.
Submitting a Query
- We recommend you get the best of both worlds
by submitting a query to the Clinton
County Illinois Mailing List and in that query, state,
"Please post to the Clinton Co ILGenWeb Query Page". If you
are already a member of the Mailing List, just e-mail your query to:
ILCLINTO-L@rootsweb.com
(see below for suggestions on the format of your query)
- If you are NOT a member of the list you must first join the list by sending an e-mail to: ILCLINTO-L-request@rootsweb.com with the single word subscribe in both the subject and the body.
- An alternate method to submit your query is to Post it to the Guestbook. Guestbook Entries will be copied manually to the Clinton Co ILGenWeb Query Page unless you tell us not to copy them.
- If you are having problems with the above methods, feel free to send your query by e-mail to Dorothy Falk and Frankie Heinzmann and we will manually post it to the Clinton Co ILGenWeb Query Page for you.
Queries should follow the format:
Surnames: (in ALL CAPS, list surnames with Clinton Co, IL connections you are researching)
Submitter: (Give your Name) (give an email address or way to contact you)
Homepage: (if you have one, give the URL to your homepage)
(Query -- be as specific as you can. Give NAMES, DATES, and LOCATIONS. Saying, "I'm looking for Minnie WEDEKEMPER" doesn't communicate. Instead, say something like "Looking for information about the parents of Wilhelmine (Minnie) FLOTTMAN (another spelling may be FLUTMAN) born 1842 in Hanover, Germany, married William WEDEKEMPER in 1865 in St. Louis, MO, moved to Meridian Township, Clinton Co, IL sometime before 1880 and died there in 1916. Her mother was possibly named Katie ROCKLAGE.")
*Note: Search engines may take 30 days or more to index new entries.