This article was originally published in the December 2005 edition of Soul Search, the journal of The Sole Society

This exciting new development results from the feedback received from members, and is designed to enable you to communicate more freely with other members. Although this is an Internet based forum, members without computers are welcome to contact their surname co-ordinator who will gladly post a message on your behalf.

For the forum to be successful it is important that all members register on the forum and leave a brief message (‘thread’) indicating the surname and locations of your family tree, and the specific areas where you are looking for help.

They are called threads because the initial message will lead to a number of responses over a period of time. If someone has already posted a message about your area of interest, then please post your details as a response to that message rather than starting a new message thread.

You can ‘Subscribe’ to any of the Forums, and this means you will be notified of all messages by email.

Within the forum you can ‘Post Reply’ to a message so that everyone can see it. This is the best method as you are more likely to receive feedback from others. Alternatively, you can send a private message or email.

Please visit the forum regularly to join in the discussions. If you have comments about this edition of Soul Search  - the forum is a good place to leave them.

The forum is also open to the general public so there is scope for getting feedback from people interested in our names but who are not members of the Society.

To get started, click on the link in our web site or visit:   www.soleforum.org.uk 

Click on the Register button on the top left because you cannot post a message until you have completed the registration process. If you get lost navigating around the forum just click on the underlined link at the top left for ‘The Sole Society Discussion Forum’ and this will take you back to the forum home page.

If you want to have a practice, there is a Test Forum where you can play around without annoying others!

Do add your photo or send it to me to add  - it’s great to add faces to all the names!

Let’s get this off to a good start with lots of messages, and if you need any help, please do not hesitate to contact me.