F.A.Q.'s - Frequently Asked Questions

What can I expect from posting in your (or other) forums?
A forum is like any other website, and all the posts are liable to end up being indexed by the search engines. So be careful in writing your message, do not disclose items that you want to keep to a restricted circle, and pay attention to spelling, nobody likes reading things written slovenly, or incomprehensible. If you write a message today, the chances are that in 6-8 weeks, that post will have been indexed by the king of search tools, Google. That means that people will keep reading what you've had to say for months and years to come, even when this forum is no more online, since Google but also other search engines will store it in their cache.
Therefore, if by posting your aim is to connect with relatives or find more information on any topic, if your email has changed 1-2 years from now, you will never be able to know if the reply to your posting arrived. It is good practice to avoid this to add at bottom of the message a kind of signature, like your name and surname and at least the city where you live, so that someone who - anywhere in the world, any time in future years - wants to contact you, will find a way.

Do I have to register to post?
While you can read all the postings, registration is required for anyone wishing to post messages. We operated messageboards since 1998 without registration but now the amount of damage done to the forums by spammers and worse is too much. Registration is a safeguard for the forums and all serious visitors. We do not "collect information" on users, we do not sell or give away e-mail addresses of members. We do not send unsolicited e-mail.

Why was my post deleted?
Posts which have nothing to do with the forum will be deleted. Postings that are against our forum rules will be deleted. For more details read our FORUM RULES
TOP
Do I have to register to post?
While you can read all the postings, registration is required for anyone wishing to post messages. We operated messageboards since 1998 without registration but now the amount of damage done to the forums by spammers and worse is too much. Registration is a safeguard for the forums and all serious visitors. We do not "collect information" on users, we do not sell or give away e-mail addresses of members. We do not send unsolicited e-mail.
TOP
Can I post HTML in my message?
No.
TOP
How can I protect my email address from spammers?


The most effective way to avoid spam is to keep your email address to yourself. Spammers can't get your address if you don't make it public. Only give your address to friends, family and co-workers, and ask them not to circulate it. Don't add your name to Internet directories, and ask directories to remove your name if you are already listed.

However, your posting in a messageboard will be useless if other visitors who have the information you need cannot contact you. There are several different options that will help keep the spam away.

  1. Use a spam block filter if your Mail Service Provider has this service.
  2. Use a second email address. If your ISP doesn't provide a second address for free, you can get one from a free email provider. This way, all the spam will go to the secondary address, leaving your primary address free for legitimate email. Then check your "public" email address always through Webmail (not downloading to your computer) and remove the spam. When it gets too clogged just discontinue it, register another and in case repost your message.
  3. Scramble your address. This practice, known as munging or spoofing, means adding extra characters into your outgoing email address, so that Cary_Grant@isp.net become Cary_Grant_spamblock@deletethis.isp.net. The software that automatically collects addresses for spammers won't know that the address won't work, but you can add a note to your signature telling how to decode the address, for those legitimate responses to your post.

    Unfortunately spammer programs will soon find a way to decode any attempt of this kind.

    THEREFORE THE ONLY WAY IS NOT TO PUBLISH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.

TOP
I don'know the province of my ancestors. How can I find it?
  • One of the following documents (which someone among your relatives may also have ...) might give you the place of origin
    - an extract of death, to be requested from the administration (county etc) where your relative deceased
    - the immigration manifesto or naturalization paper
    - an extract of marriage, to be requested from the local administration or church where the marriage was celebrated

    If the above documents are not available, proceed to find where your ancestor's surname appears in Italy. In this researhc consider that most emigration was from Southern Italy directed abroad and to Northern Italy and Rome, therefore the results you may obtain for Rome and Piedmont or Lombardy may not be reliable as indicators of a place of origin. To check where the surname you are researching appears nowadays in Italy, you can use

    1. If you do not even know the region: Italian White Pages, where you can search throughout Italy or limit to the north, center or south
    2. If you know the region: Italian Local White Pages, inserting your surname in the "Cognome" field, then leaving the "Nome" field blank, and inserting in the "Dove" field the name of the region, or the abbreviation of the Province, to search throughout a Province, or the name of the place, to see if that place exist. If you write the extended form of the name of the Province, for example Napoli, you will obtain only the results included in the capital town of the Province, that is the comune of Naples. If you write NA, the results will include residents of the whole Province. If you do not know the abbreviation of the Province, click here to open a new window, then close it to come back here. CLICK HERE FOR A MORE DETAILED EXPLANATION
    • TOP
    I am unsure of the spelling of the municipality or province. How can I get it right?
    Check in our lists of Regions and Comuni. It is possible what your parents or grandparents knew and told you is different now. Places that were municipalities in the past may now be included in another municipality, and some municipalities have changed province when new Provinces were established. Also a new region was formed (Molise), which was previously one with Abruzzo. We have a complete (we hope) List of "Comuni" for Italy, that you can browse by clicking on the label "Regions" in the top navigation bar.

    If your ancestors came through Ellis Island, visit http://www.ellisisland.org/ and research only by surname. If you get a great many results, the website will tell you "Your search returns ##### records, please enter a first name or first initial to narrow down your search". At this point repeat the research with at least an initial (try with the most common: A, C, G, F, M, P, V). When you have the results, choose in the right column "Name of town - edit" and you will see a List of the places of origin in Italy. They will appear in alphabetical order, but some may have the correct spelling.
    TOP
    I do not know the place but the surname is very common and the results in the Italian white pages were too many
    Your research may not be so desperate as it looks, but will require time, precision and patience on your part. Try to get also the surname of the wife/husband of the individual you are looking for, and if possible surnames for both his/her grandmothers. Then prepare a chart with the 2, 3 4 surnames you were able to get, and repeat the research through the Italian white pages listing all the Provinces and Comuni where the surname appears. Then see if you have places where all the surnames you were able to find for your ancestors appear.
    TOP
    How can I research in the White Pages? I don't know Italian and don't understand websites in Italian.
    There are two main sites that you can use, and there is no need to understand Italian, The results will appear as addresses in the form:
    surname, name
    zip code, town, province - street and number
    Telephone
    If you want to search only in town, a province or region, go to:
    http://paginebianche.virgilio.it/index.html
    To search throughout Italy, go to:
    http://elenco.libero.it/elencotel/public/RicercaOmonimie.jsp. For more guidance, see our instruction page at Surname research through white pages in Italy
    TOP
    Where do I find timetables of trains or buses in Italy?
    The Italian Railways have a convenient timetable online: http://trenitalia.com/. Instead bus lines are usually localized by region, you may find the proper links to bus companies in the official websites of the Italian regions. Their internet address is typically: http://www.regione.regionname.it (Ex.: the website for Lazio is: http://www.regione.lazio.it). Also the official website of the province may help: the address is in the form http://www.provincia.provincename.it (Ex., for the Province of Rieti it is http://www.provincia.rieti.it). And you could go down to the municipality website, in the form http://www.comune.placename.it/ (ex: http://www.comune.rieti.it/ is the address of the Comune of Rieti). But for small places beware that all domain names http://www.comune.placename.it/ for the over 8,000 Italian Comuni if not registered by the comune administration, were bought by Internet companies that aim at generating traffic and sales of their services on the Web, and just clone the same page over and over to all the unused Internet addresses of the small places.
    TOP
    Where do I find addresses for townhalls, parish churches, archives?
    If you need to request certificates, the request must be addressed to the "Municipio - Ufficio Anagrafe of the place. The addresses of the townhalls can be found in the White Pages http://paginebianche.it/ inserting "municipio", more rarely "comune" in the "cognome" field and then inserting the place in the "dove" field. The same applies to the "parrocchia" or "archivio".
    TOP
    Can I post HTML in my message?
    No.
    TOP
    Entering Your Name
    Enter your company's name or your personal name. Because this is a professional forum, use of handles is discouraged. This is a required field.
    TOP
    Entering Your E-Mail Address
    A valid email address is required to post within this board. Entering your email address allows others reading your message to respond to you via email. This is a required field.
    TOP
    TOP
    Entering The Subject
    This should be a few words summarizing the topic of your message. After posting your message, this is the line that others see when viewing the index of messages. A good descriptive subject line helps others identify the subject matter of your message. This is a required field.
    TOP
    Entering Your Message
    This is the heart of the board. By being clear and concise, your questions can be easily answered, your opinions and thoughts are better conveyed. When complete, you are given the option of previewing the message before actually posting it on the board. To edit your message, simply press the [Back] button on your browser. This is a required field.
    TOP
    Entering Optional Link URLs
    The Optional Link URL field allows you to enter the full URL for a link elsewhere on the Web. Enter the complete URL here. This is an optional field.
    TOP
    Entering Link Title
    The Link Title field is used in conjunction with the Optional Link URL. Enter the title/name of the page linked under Optional Link URL. This is an optional field.
    TOP
    Entering Optional Image URL
    The Optional Image URL allows the linking of a graphic image elsewhere on the Web. Enter the full URL of the image to be displayed at the top of the message. This should not be used unless the image to be displayed is directly related to the subject matter of the post. Articles with linked images that are excessive in size may be removed without notice. This is an optional field.
    TOP
    Can I put HTML tags anywhere in my posts?
    No. You can not use HTML tags in any field except body of the message.
    TOP
    Why are there colons in the message when I try to post a followup?
    Colons appear in the message dialog box when you try to followup up on a message to indicate that those lines are quoting the previous document.
    TOP
    Why didn't my post show up?
    Your post most likely did not show up, because your browser did not reload the page, it simply pulled it out of cache. Please reload your browser and it should then appear.
    TOP
    Why do I see (pic) and (url) in the message lines on the index page?
    If you see (pic), it means there is a picture in the message and if you see (url), it means there is a link in the message.

    HOME
    abruzzo world club - all rights reserved