To send email to Karen Phister, Kevin Breechner, Ed Mentz or me (Barbara
Benge) here are the do and don'ts.
If you want to email me these are what I ask of you, keep in mind I get between
20-30 emails a day. YES I said a day, they can take me from 20 minutes to
do a simple look up to 4-20 hours for just one request. This is on my time.
I have a family, a full time job and am currently working on a book, along
with trying to maintain this website. Melodie Sanders is unable to answer
email at the present time do to poor health. These are some basic guidelines
for you to follow directing any email to all of us. Some people have thought
that these guidelines are a little harsh but if you figure the time factor
I usually spend at least 4 hours a day working on emails. Okay so 4 hours
email, 8 hours work 6 days a week, 9 monthes of the year, cleaning house
or running errands 2 hours a day, 2 hours working on book, and my time is
pretty slim on sleep. So keep in mind this service is free, if you have a
question I don't have the information on then it takes time for me to find
that information for you. I do this because it is what I love.
DO
1. If you would like information on your family, include where they were,
and at least an aproximate date.
2. Parents, siblings, married and maiden names are also helpful.
3. Do you home work first START with you don't try to find someone who lived
50, 100, or 200 years ago without checking the record you need to check.
Go to your local library and check out books on basic genealogy. You have
to learn this before you can do Indian Genealogy. There truely is no short
cuts in genealogy.
4. Do ask me for good books on your tribes history.
5. If a link is down, check to make sure it is not just temporally out of
order, you can always dump your cache files and check this out another day
later. See if you can find the new link and send it to me. If not let me
know. It takes me 5 days every time I go through the new links page to check
links, and I try to do this 4 times a year.
6. Do make sure you are Emailing to the person that you are wanting to send
information to!! We are pretty good about forewarding mail to each other
but it makes us take one more step then necessary.
DON'T
1. Don't ask me about burial, marriage or other customs of a tribe. Though
I am a genealogist and have to have a back ground on the history of a tribe,
I am NOT a tribal historian.
2. Don't ask me for Indian names for a baby. Most Cherokee's used Traditional
versions of an English name if not an English name. IF you are interested
in using an Indian name, rent a roll of microfilm census record for the tribe
you are looking for.
3. Don't email asking about and Indian Princess, there really is no such
thing, just daughters of Cheifs.
4. Don't email me telling me that your great, great great whatever married
and Indian woman. What was her name. How am I suppose to know if you have
done your research you CAN find these records, if not expect to pay me $20
an hour and I can do you research for you.
5. Don't email me to translate a name, my Cherokee is not very good and I
speak English, Spanish and some French.
English/Cherokee
Translator for other Indian Languages check out
Your
Dictionary.com North American Indian languages
6. My biggest pet peeve!!!!!!!!!!! Dont ask me to interpet your dreams,
or email me that you had a dream that you were Indian, how do you prove it?
Now come on guys, lets get to some reality here!!
Okay if you've gone by the do's and don'ts above
I will take email on any tribe, as long as the above guidelines are followed