RootsChat is all about community and communication for your family history research. And there are plenty of ways to communicate: Posting on the boards, Instant Messaging, E-mail, ICQ, AOL Instant Messanger (AIM) and Yahoo Instant Messanger (YIM).

Instant Messaging

While e-mail is a good way to correspond privately with members, it has several drawbacks: You must open your e-mail application to write and send the message; the recipient must open his/her e-mail application; check his/her mail and your message will mixed in with all the other mail and it can take sometimes several minutes to an hour for mail to reach the recipient.

As an alternative to e-mail, RootsChat offers a faster, more private method. Instant Messaging provides instantaneous delivery to the recipient's RootsChat Inbox. The mail is sent and received entirely through RootsChat, so neither you nor the recipient have to open another program or leave RootsChat. Instant Messaging also gives both the sender and recipient greater privacy: No one's e-mail address is revealed. Instant Messages show only the username and name of both parties.

If a recipient isn't online, Instant Messages wait in the member's RootsChat inbox until the next time they log in and then reads and/or deletes them. RootsChat Instant Messaging is a self-contained, highly private e-mail system.