Genealogy Chat

I am trying to get in touch with someone via email. If something happened to that person and he no longer has a computer; or, hopefully not, something happened to him -- would the email just drift off into space, or would it come back to me "undeliverable"? Thank you for any words of wisdom.

Hi Lisa I think a lot would depend on how quickly you sent your e-mail after the person lost the use of a computer. Some, but only some, free web-based e-mail ISPs ask that you log into your account only once every 30 days. If you fail to do that they close your account. If the person concerned was paying for an e-mail account, this would not be closed unless he/she either so asked, or defaulted on a payment. So, unless you sent your e-mail after account closure action was taken (either by the individual or by the ISP), it would not come back to you as undeliverable. Just to complicate things a bit, I've had the experience of an ISP failing to close my account when I asked them to do so. They stopped charging me for the service, but the account was left active. I only found that out after more than a year when I tried to set up a new account with that ISP! Hope this helps David

If the account no longer exists or has expired most ISPs will send a bounce back mail containing an error code 550 and some cryptic explanation. A variation on this is called a soft bounce where the recipient is over quota or the mail cannot be delivered du to a temporary problem. Most ISPs send bounces, though opinions are divided, as spammers will use bounce backs to confirm a negative. If they guess two addresses and send two mails and receive one bounceback, they then implicitly know one valid address. If your email was sent via the genesconnected site then the bounceback will go back to GC who do not pass them on. Did you send the mail from your regular email account ?

Thank you very much, David. I believe I sent the first email at the beginning of January and it is not like "him" to not respond. I just sent one again -- we'll see what happens. Thank you for the information; I'm learning almost as much about computers as genealogy from this site! Just saw your reply, Jonathan. I sent it from my internet service, not GC. Thank you as well for your information -- computers and I don't really get along -- but I sure am gaining experience from all of the knowledgeable people here. Regarding my unanswered email -- perhaps he has just been busy and is in fine health. Hope so.

It seems quite a few people have had trouble with ee mails lately,myself being one. I've sent e mails out to possible new family contacts and not sure whether they received them or not. Mail hasn't come back to me but I've got no way of knowing whether its got to them either. Mary Brooke

Computers can be frustrating at times, can't they Mary? In my case, I'm a little worried about "David", as he is quite good about responding. Perhaps he is just away or busy. I hope you get your emails squared away quickly!