What is the alt.family-names.* newsgroup hierarchy, and how did it start?
The alt.family-names.* newgroup hierarchy started late in 1996 and at the time it was created, many sysadmins didn’t carry it because of the misconception that the groups with names were just ‘vanity’ groups. Because of this and problems with spammers using them for a dumping ground, their potential use as resources for and to the genealogy community has gone unnoticed. That is, until this FAQ. The alt.family-names.* hierarchy at present consists of the catch-all group alt.family-names and over 100 separate surname groups such as alt.family-names.anderson. Click on the link to Liszt’s list of these groups for a near-complete listing of the separate surname groups.
