You never know where genealogy will take you. While browsing archived messages on a Shore family e-mail list, I found a reference to a book written by a woman I met more than 30 years ago. At the time of our one-and-only meeting, she seemed incredibly ancient and a little squirrelly. In retrospect, I'd guess that she was probably about as old as I am now. Her name was Leo Jane Shore—and she was smart as a whip.

Leo Jane lived for genealogy. She belonged to the Daughters of the American Revolution and just about every other lineage society you could think of. We were related through a third-great-grandfather. But on the day we met, I didn't ask a single family tree question. So you can imagine my chagrin when I found that e-mail message about her book, which traces our mutual line back to 17th-century Switzerland. How I wished I could have that day back!

Thankfully, the genealogy fairy was watching out for me. Through the Shore mailing list, I managed to track down a copy of Leo Jane's book, and from it, began piecing together what had always been a challenging part of my family puzzle.

Similar breakthroughs could be just a few e-mails away for you, too. Mailing lists are excellent networking tools for genealogists who share distant ancestors, interests or research goals. When you join a mailing list, you're stepping into your own virtual research community, where genealogists exchange questions, announce discoveries, post transcriptions, suggest new research avenues and request lookups. They're free, they're fun and they're filled with possibilities. Learn how to maximize those possibilities with these tips for finding and subscribing to mailing lists, managing the onslaught of messages and unearthing the clues in mailing-list archives.

Lists Unlimited
Genealogists have set up mailing lists for just about every family history topic imaginable. Here are a few RootsWeb-hosted lists:

• Andersonville: Descendants and historians discuss Andersonville, the notorious Civil War prison camp.

• Census-Chat: Get tips for locating census information and request census lookups.

• City-Directories: Volunteers will look up your ancestors in old directories such as those found at local and state public libraries.

• GenAuthor: Genealogists share ideas for preparing and publishing family histories.

• Genealogy-Research-Club: Novice genealogists share information that will help them improve their research skills.

• Gen-Newbie: New to computers or genealogy? This list's for you.

• Mariners: Dock here to research your seafaring ancestors.

• NCScots: Researchers collaborate on tracing Scottish ancestors who settled in North Carolina.

• North-Am-English: Network with others researching their English roots.

• Pre-1940_Adoption_Genealogy: Find strategies and resources for tracing adoptees' ancestors.

• Research-HowTo: This community helps family history beginners and anyone tackling dead-end family lines.

• TheShipsList: Learn about the ships your ancestors immigrated on.

If you can't find an existing list for your target topic, you aren't out of luck: Submit a request to RootsWeb to create one (see resources.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listrequest.pl).