I have had the most success in genealogy by hooking up with other people.
I would like to share with you John Fuller's irreplaceable Genealogy Resource page. He scoured the internet for genealogy e-mail list. This page is not only the lists available on Rootsweb, but other places such as Yahoo Groups.
In fact, he found the lists I opened up and run and personally contacted me to get permission and information to add to his pages.
This is certainly a must-have for researchers.