Greetings!

"i m looking 4 mary smith frum sou city iwa don't no where she was born cud b alabma her husband name is bill will jim" from: hotdog19121919@

Have you ever read something like the above? The internet has made us lazy. We substitute words with symbols,spell words including our families' any old way and use a "nic" or address that's questionable. So what... "it's just the internet and you should get my point."

No wonder there's no answer to hotdog's query. You might say, if you can't write a sentence then why should I bother to answer it? The above is a bit extreme, but we've all seen similar posts.

I've read many comments from exasperated researchers whose queries on various have gone unanswered. Their queries unlike the above example, are gramatically correct but bring no results.

Birmingham Genealogy's website gives researchers some tips for writing a successful query.

Please click on the url below.

Enjoy!

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