FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Are the volunteer look ups free?

Yes, all the look ups done by our volunteers are free of charge and will be sent to you in a email. However, if you request the information to be sent to you by snail mail, they can ask to be reimbursed expenses incurred for copies, printing, postage, film developing or parking fees. Some volunteers may ask for reimbursement for mileage due to the increase in fuel costs. The volunteer shall not charge no more than the sum of 50 cents per mile for mileage. Our Volunteers are not "allowed" to charge an hourly rate for their time researching. Our volunteers do not believe in making a profit by helping others gain information that they need if they are unable to travel to obtain it themselves.

If you feel like that you have been "UNFAIRLY" charged for something, please contact Genealogy LookUp and we will look into the situation.

May I send the same lookup request to more than one volunteer in the same category in the same area?

No!! Our volunteers do not appreciate duplicating another volunteer’s work. They ask for you to wait 5 - 10 days for a reply to your request that you submitted to them. Some of our volunteers have multiple lookup listings on the web site and it may take a few days for them to answer your request. If you do not hear from the volunteer that you submitted your request to, then resubmit your request to the next available volunteer.

What should I do if I never get a reply from the volunteer I submitted my request to?

If you do not hear from the volunteer that you submitted your lookup request to after 10 days, please contact Genealogy LookUp and we will try to contact them to find out what has happened. If we do not hear back from them within 10 days; then that volunteer will have their lising removed from our web site.

There are no volunteer's in the area I am researching, when will one be available?

Keep checking back if there is not a volunteer in the category or area that you are researching. New volunteers are added daily.

I submitted a lookup to my volunteer but their email address is bouncing, whom do I contact that the volunteer listing is invalid?

If you submitted a lookup request and the volunteer email address is bouncing, please contact Genealogy LookUp letting us know which volunteer listing appears to be invalid. Forward us a copy of the bounce notification that you received and we will remove the listing once we are sure they are no longer valid.

I would like to volunteer for your web site? Who would I contact to become a volunteer?

Browse through our web site to gain an idea of our different types of look ups that are posted in each category. Then contact us at Genealogy LookUp to send us a list of the different types of look up requests you are willing to provide for others. If you do not provide enough information when you send your list, we may contact you for further information.

How long will it take before my volunteer listing(s) will appear on your web site?

Your volunteer listing(s) should appear on the web site within 3 - 5 days once they have been approved. We get new volunteers daily, sometimes it will take longer for listing(s) to appear on the site if we have a large number of people volunteering. You should get a notification email from us once your listing(s) have been added to the web site. If by chance they do not appear on the site, please resubmit your volunteer request to Genealogy LookUp Forum.

What do I do if someone sends me a request that isn't very specific or they give very little information for me to work with?

Contact the requestor asking them to provide more detailed information about their ancestor and to state exactly what they want you to lookup. If they are unable to provide you with further information for you to help them; send them a nice email reply stating the reason why you are unable to help them at this time. Explain to them once they have more information for you to work with, then they can feel free to resubmit their lookup request to you.

What do I do if I get swamped all the sudden with numerous requests?

Contact the requestor(s) and let them know that you received their request. Explain to them that you have several requests to answer and they will be placed on a waiting list on a first come, first serve basis. Most people are understanding and they are willing to wait until you get to their request. If you are extremely swamped with requests; you may consider having your listings show "Temporarily Unavailable" for two weeks until you are caught up. Volunteers may go on a two week "Temporarily Unavailable" status if they are having computer problems, become ill or going on vacation.

I am interested in joining the genealogy chatroom, what do I need to do?

There are a few steps you must do in order to become a registered genealogy chat member.

1. You must register a chat user name and password. Go to the chatroom page, double click on the "create new user account" link on the login box of the chat room (a pop-up form will appear) and fill out the required information. Please be sure to have your pop-up blocker turned off or choose to allow pop-ups from that page before you try to register.

2. Please read our genealogy chatroom rules located at Genealogy Chatroom Rules to be sure you would agree with our rules before you joined the genealogy chats.

3. After you register your chat user account with us. Send us an email (our email address is below) to verify your email address is a valid address. Your chat account will be activated within 24 hours. You will get a email notification about your chat account.

4. You must agree to be placed on our genealogy chat schedule mailing list. This informs the chat members of the chat schedules so that they do not miss their favorite chat session. If you do not agree, we will remove your chat membership.

NOTE: Your chat account will be activated within 24 hours and you will recieve a email notification. New chat members may not be able to enter the room right away until the accounts are activated.

How do I subscribe to the genealogy chat schedule mail list?

There is a box located under the chat room on the same page that says "Join The Mailing List". Enter your chat user name and email address. Then you will get a confirmation email with a link that you will need to click on to confirm your subscription. You will be taken to a Bravenet page. Do not register for that site, just close the page......NOTE: We use Bravenet.com server to send out our daily chat notice. There is no need to join the bravenet site itself.

Why do I not see a chatroom login box or create new user account link?

This sounds like a java problem. Our genealogy chatroom uses the most current version of Sun Java. Go to Download Sun Java to install the newest version for your computer. This is needed to be able to access our genealogy chatroom. Be sure to clear your cookies and temporary internet files if you already have the current java version.

I forgot my chat room login user name and password. How can I obtain that information?

We can look up your chat room login user name and send that information to you. However, members will have to double click on the "Forgotten Your Password" link to fill out the form to obtain your chat user password. If your password information does not show up in your email box within 10 minutes, resubmit the request or check your spam folder to see if it was sent there by mistake. Please contact us at Genealogy LookUp if you need any further assistance.

NOTE: If you have not created a chat user account, you will not be able to enter the chat room.

I am a member of the genealogy chat but when I try to login, I get an error message. What could be the problem?

There could be various of reasons why you are unable to login to the genealogy chat.

1. Be sure that you are entering the correct chat user name and password.

2. If you are an AOL member and you are trying to login using the AOL browser, you may experience problems. For some reason the AOL browser does not always work well with our genealogy chat room. We suggest you try using another browser such as Internet Explorer, FireFox or Netscape when trying to use our chat. If you do not have one of these browsers on your computer, you can go to the following links to download them.

Mozilla FireFox --- Internet Explorer 6 --- Internet Explorer 7 --- Netscape Navigator

3. Try delete your cookies and temp files on your computer. Shut your computer down for 30 seconds. Restart computer, then try return to the chat room page to see if that works.

4. You can also try empty your sun java temp files. Go to your add/remove programs to locate the sun java icon. Then click on the icon to open it. Go to General. Find tempoary internet files. Click on delete files. You will get a gray box appear with 3 items listed, downloaded applets, downloaded applications, and other files. Make sure all 3 boxes are checked. Then click Ok. This will clear out your sun java of those temp files. Sometimes Sun Java will not work properly if it gets too full of tempoary java files. This usually helps getting rid of those temp files in sun java.

NOTE: Please do not send your lookup requests to the Genealogy LookUp Forum webmaster. Those requests will be unanswered by the webmaster. Please check the web site for a volunteer in the area that you need.