Ways You Can HELP This Web Site (and other sites also)
The Internet can be an extremely powerful tool to genealogists. It provides a virtually free communications link to other people that would otherwise be impossible to contact. However, the catch is that everyone has to put out at least a little effort to help others. A few ideas of how you might help include:

• If you have general or specific information about Cooke County conveniently available to you, you could volunteer to do "look-ups" in those materials for individuals requesting help. It would work something like this. We would post a message that says "Sally Sue Smith has a book entitled FIVE FAMILIES OF COOKE and has graciously offered to do look-ups in that publication. Please limit to one surname. She may be contacted via email at salsue@whatever.com " or whatever limitations you would like to impose. Even if you only have limited resources (of information), that is sometimes helpful if someone is trying to research Cooke County when they live out of the area.
• If you live in Cooke County and from time to time go to a facility that has records, publications, etc. that would be of interest to others, compile a list of that information (on your computer) and email it to the webmaster. Soon we will start a list of useful publications, facilities, and other information that should prove helpful to anyone interested in Cooke County research.
• If you are reading this, you undoubtedly have a computer available. The reason you are able to read it is because someone took the time to TYPE IT INTO A COMPUTER. Well ........ there are literally millions of useful public and private records that are hand written and could be of enormous benefit if they were "captured" into computer files. If you are able to type relatively easily, you might volunteer to type some of those records. Better still, you might even locate beneficial records AND type them.
• If you have any other ideas on how you (or others) could help, please let me know by contacting me.
  Thank you, Norman L. Newton, Cooke County Coordinator for the TXGenWeb Project.
   

If You Are NEW At Posting Queries .....
There are several web sites that have their own ideas about how to post a query and demand that you follow their guidelines. This site doesn't demand anything ...... but we do have a few ideas that might help. Consider the following:

• Be Sure to include the County Name. Part of the basic idea of the GenWeb project is to have each county in the U.S. represented by its own web site. At many of those sites (including this one), if the county name is not specifically mentioned, the query will be posted in the "general area queries" instead of the "county queries". Suffice it to say, the "county queries" get more attention than the "general area queries"
• Place SURNAMES that you are seeking IN ALL CAPS. If someone is browsing through a list of queries, something is going to have to catch their eye if your query is to be answered. Since you don't usually have control over other highlight features available (i.e. bold, underline, color, Font Size, etc.) use ALL CAPS for the SURNAME to make it stand out.
• Submit a reasonable number of surnames per query. If you submit too many surnames in a single query, you may not be taken seriously. Ideally, one surname per query is not a bad idea ..... two, three, maybe four, is OK ...... above that ...... consider breaking the list into several different queries.
• Provide sufficient information. A query that simply indicates a surname without dates, places, etc. (especially for common names ... i.e. Smith, Jones, etc.) doesn't really identify the person you are seeking very well. Consider something like "Seeking information on Robert T. Smith, born abt. 1890, place unknown, wife’s name unknown, had children named Sally, Billy, and Tom. Resided in Dallas about 1925" instead of "need info on Bob Smith".
• Think before you hit the submit button. Read and re-read the query before submitting it. Ask yourself 1) Did I leave any pertinent information out? 2) Is my email address correct? 3) Does this look OK? Once you hit the submit button, it may not be a trivial matter to get it changed ....... depending on where it gets posted. Queries often go into an archive file (at a remote site) as well as showing up on a particular web page. Sending a change to your query (maybe even only a few minutes later) will not change the archive file. Why is that important? Because the archive file is where some of the massive research databases get their data.
  
  Hope these ideas help. Happy hunting!.