You need permission to join this group, because...

1. We are not intending to compete with existing open forums such as (in their Lancaster forms)...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lancasterfamilyhistory/
http://boards.ancestry.co.uk/mbexec?htx=board&r=5538&p=surnames.lancaster
http://genforum.genealogy.com/lancaster/
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/LANCASTER

For information that can be easily published on these more popular forums, we do so, in order to maximize the number of people who might contribute!

2. The forum aims to be "focused" on types of communication not easy to pass and then store in any other way. It is hoped this forum will allow close cooperation of people working to put together a better understanding of the relationships between the various families with the surnames Lancaster, Lancashire, etc, as well as some related surnames including Satterthwaite and Satterfield. One aim is that the archives of this forum library of resources (links, census extractions, register extractions etc) which can be searched later by members.

Reasons for creating this forum included:-

*A need to have a forum where we could discuss DNA project results and not loose our notes, without just posting everything on the open internet.

*A need to have a forum were we could discuss several possibly related surnames, and regional groups within surnames.

*The usefulness of having a specific place where "deep roots" (for example genealogy before 1700) could be focused on. (In normal genealogy forums 18th-20th discussion is very dominant.)

*The usefulness of having a place where a small group of researchers working in a particular field can store information in a way which is easy to access and build upon later.

It is to be hoped that a team of people working on different blocks of these families, who can together make major progress in the genealogy of these several surnames.