[or-roots] Why Leave?

[Leslie Chapman]

Leave us not criticize those who choose to depart, perhaps, like myself they
have found themselves overcomitted listwise and have chosen our list as one
to sacrifice. At one time I was on between a dozen and twenty lists, in
truth I had lost count. Then I got a job and was forced to severely curtail
my chasing of the dead relatives as a consequence of which I left as many
lists as I could remember I was on. Subsequently I changed email addy and
ditched the rest.

Ironically the main reason I joined this list I have yet to see fulfilled,
but I stay because I enjoy knowing you folks, I have received help from a
number of you and most importantly I have found that more often than not if
I take the time to try and help another person on the list by doing my own
internet research "for them" I end up finding something of use to me,
whether I help them or not.

Corralary (sp?) to that thought; I archive all that comes through on the
list because hard drive space is cheap and trying to track things down on my
puter is hard enough without trying to track down that John Jones that
somebody had data on back in '01.

I can specifically address one recent departure; Virgene and spouse will be
enroute to the wintering grounds for a couple of weeks and I imagine she did
not wish for her mailbox to be crammed full when she gets there.

I must note here that back in early September I had succeeded in archiving
all my Or-list stuff, all my wheeler list stuff and had significantly
whittled down my personal email that I wished to save (yes, I save
practically everything; I can't wait till one of the kin has to come
crawling to me in hopes I can tell them when the did  ---------; because
they can remember they emailed me to talk about it and they really need to
know WHEN it was and have lost their record) and then somebody came on here
and complained about how dead this list was of late; THANKS, I currently
have 450 emails in my Or-list folder to sort. To add insult to the injury
somebody dissed the Wheeler list at about the same time, but it hasn't
picked up the way this list did.

Yes I know that I can get all this stuff from online archives, but in the
process I try to preserve the threads somewhat when I archive, though that
sometimes get lost in the shuffle, and once I have something on my computer
I am loathe to let it go in the off chance i will want that info someday. It
never ceases to amaze me how many blinkin' relatives I have. I probably know
nearly 200 living relatives going out to 3rd or 4th cousin and I suspect
that if I had data on all my kin to 4th cousin I know less than a third of
them, yet I am in touch with folks who are as much as 14 or 15th cousins and
if I fill in those gaps I will probably have most of the planet in my family
tree. YIKES!

Yes Marsha we say the Cooper stuff, and thank you, considering where the
lived it seems inevitable I will link to them some day.

Ain't genealogy fun!

Les C