Suggestions

Thanks girls.

It was Joy's Brooks that interested me. I'm researching them too.

I would only use a PM if it was requested by the person.

Yes, Joan. However, I have not put all the surnames in my ancestral family - not enough space :-)

Yes -- it's a feature you can find in your "my account" (upper right).

I'm not particularly interested in displaying the names I'm researching so I took the opportunity to try to stave off the flood of private messages (PMs) I get from inexperienced users in response to posts in their threads.

(Over the years, we regulars have each received 100s of PMs that say things like "thank you, that's my grandmother" -- and if they come 2 days or sometimes 2 years after we posted, we have no idea what they are about. Also, no one else can see those replies, of course, so they don't advance the search.)

Others followed suit, so the "researching" fields in several people's posts combine to produce a complete set of helpful tips. ;-)

Some people change their avatar pictures periodically and include info in their "researching" field that explains what the pictures are.

Mostly, though, yes, the field contains info about the surnames and families the poster is interested in. :-)

When you receive a response to a posting, it shows a field 'Researching......' and a list of names.

Does this mean that the person responding is researching the names listed?

Thanks.