Von: rapantel@stuttgart.netsurf.de (Mike Pantel)
  Datum: 20.06.98, 23:36:18
Betreff: Re: Is This Site German or American?

Edkelley1 wrote at 19.06.98, 22:15:18:

> I just signed on a few days ago but it appears that this is an
> American Site and not German.  Everything I've seen thus far
> has been in English other than a few messages from Americans
> that have wanted to communicate in German.  If Germans in
> Deutschland are not or don't want to be involved, I want to
> terminate my  involvement as it is a waste of time.

Dear Ed (?) and Verne,

the Baden-Württemberg mailing list is multi-national. We have
people from all over the world subscribed to the list. It's
hard to decipher out of the mail addresses where the authors
coming from. I know of a lot of germans here at this list,
some living in the US. The standard language of the list is
english and therefore it's hard to recognize where the people
living.

A few reasons why the percentage of germans is that low:

1) Most germans aren't that familar with the english language
2) We have to pay for the internet connection or the mail
transfer (to the phone company *and* our ISP). That facts
lowers the popularity of the Internet in Germany. (Thanks to
Beverly, she knows about that reason)
3) Family history and genealogy through the Internet isn't
that popular in Germany because most of the researchers are
elder people. They often didn't have a PC.
4) Making advertising for that mailing list in Germany is
much more difficult than in the US. We have more restrictive
rules here.
5) Germans typically search for their ancestors in Germany
or europe. They often didn't pay attention to a english list
hosted by an american service. Our genealogical lines don't
start in the US. This is one of the major problems getting
people to join the list.

I know that all of my german speaking friends here are very
expierienced with genealogy and help as much they can but
some problems cannot be solved.

Dennoch, wenn es von den Mitgliedern hier gewünscht wird,
daß mehr deutschsprachige Texte und Diskussionen über die
Liste behandelt werden sollen, so wäre ich einer der Letzten,
die dazu Nein sagen. Was sagen die Mitleser zu diesem Thema?

(no, no translation available ;-)


Hope that clears some details,
Mike

--
Raimund "Mike" Pantel       mailto: rapantel@stuttgart.netsurf.de
Listowner of Baden-Wuerttemberg Mailing List
Sponsor of Rootsweb Genealogy http://www.rootsweb.com