Hello everyone,

My name is Liz Exton and I'm one of the adult volunteers on the list. I'm

based in Amsterdam, Holland until mid-September, then I'll be in Bristol,

UK. There will be a new email address, and there might be a few days when

I'm not connected, but I hope not;)

I'm a systems analyst in a bank and I'm just about to go freelance.

I posted this before, but now there seem to be more people on the list I

thought I'd post it again - if you've read it before you don't have to read

it again;)

I've been doing my family tree for about a year now. I more or less took

over from where my father's cousin had left off. I've had some amazing

successes, mostly using the internet.

My first project was to find my American relatives. My great-grandfather's

brother emigrated (immigrated?) at the turn of the century and the two

families finally lost touch in 1938. All I had to go on were the names of

three people who must be in their 80's and an old address in Detriot. I

found my 4th cousin in California in about half an hour! Fortunately for me

the 2 surnames I was looking for are both unusual and it was quite easy to

send out about 100 emails. Most people responded and I didn't have any

negative response.

Then I turned my attention to the UK branch, where the success hasn't been

quite that spectacular. I got in touch (email) with a couple of Extons who

are not related to me (yet?). One of them has a huge card index and was

able to give me several helpful pointers. The other one barely knew who his

grandfather had been (really!), but got fired up with the idea of finding

out more. As I'm not based in the UK, he has done a few lookups for me

whilst doing his own research.

I have also become a regular at my local LDS here in Amsterdam. They have

been able to get me films of the parish registers of the places my

ancestors lived in England and I have been able to make a lot of progress

that way.

I would like to help the kids by searching the net and by asking questions

in newsgroups. I'm also a European born and bred, so perhaps I can also

help out those kids with European ancestors. I can speak French and Dutch

and can read a bit of German too on a good day;)

Perhaps the kids who don't have good access to the net can set me

assignments and I can come back with a list of URLS so that they can make

better use of what online time they have.

Anyway, now you know what my skills are (such as they are), please feel

free to come up with things I can do to help.

Regards,

Liz Exton