Join a Genealogy Mailing List
Mailing lists can be an excellent way of getting in touch with other people doing similar research as you, but with the added convenience of not having to visit websites every day.
A mailing list in this context is actually an email list, not something you get in the post.
How a mailing list works is you sign up with your email address and you receive email messages from everyone else on the list. You can add your own messages to the discussions by sending an email to the list. It saves you the trouble of keeping track of everyone's individual emails.
Busy lists can generate dozens (if not hundreds) of messages each day. A common feature is a "digest" where you don't actually get each email as it is sent, but a single bundle of the day's messages at once. You probably won't need to worry about this with a smaller list, that may only produce a few messages each day.
So what kinds of things to mailing lists discuss? Well, no matter what kind of genealogy research you are doing, there is likely a list out there to suit your exact needs.
The most common approach to choosing a mailing list is by surname. Though there is no guarantee that the other people on the list are actually related to you, this gives the best chances of hooking up with others who may have information you want or need.
An alternative is to join a mailing list that covers a particular region, a good choice if you have a large number of family members from a given area. Or there are also mailing lists for a topic, such as military, royalty or adoption.
The largest collection of free email lists on genealogy can be found at Rootsweb. You can visit their site to sign up for any list (instructions are given) or you can read through the archives of old messages. Archives can be gold mines of information, but be aware that trying to contact someone based on a 3-year old message can be unsuccessful.
The archives can also give you an idea of how busy a list is. A list with only 4 or 5 messages per month won't exactly fill up your mailbox. Don't assume that it is pointless to join though. There is plenty of value in frequent posting, but even a quiet list may have a large number of subscribers. All these people will read what you have to say and can still lead to some great discoveries.
If Rootsweb doesn't have anything helpful, Cyndi's List has a collection of links to various mailing lists that may lead you in the right direction.