I'm confused... I'm getting alternate emails from the same areas and some alternate, but seem to have a consistent theme.

Your email program should be able to display SMTP headers, although it may have a fancy name.  For example Gmail calls it 'view full message'.

Jesus, thank you...

Also on GMail you want to select 'Show Original'.  This will show you the raw 'code' of the SMTP message sent to your inbox.  Some stuff may make sense to you, the rest will not.  PM me if you need some help.  DO NOT POST IT HERE as it may contain a lot of identifiable info.

It seems all we have to do is give out a little bit of information and a lot can be figured out nowadays.

gmail has changed or i did something. I am no nerd
but somehow I have 3 boxes to now sift thru. Most goes to the correct one.

Forwarding and adding new contacts into an existing email thread seems to confuse gmail and sometimes you can't go back and converse only with the original person. I've deleted threads that have gone goofy and one thread was screwing up a provider's phone so I told her to delete all of my emails. That did it, phone worked again.

…amd this is a term which I use with the full sarcasm and snark that it deserves.  The motto as always in the tech world, is:  "If something is simple and easy to use, and people love it, make sure that you mess with it by adding new 'features' that nobody has asked for, and only make the end-user experience more frustrating".

By default, gmail is now set to give you not just an inbox (this would be too simple, of course); nope, now you must have a regular inbox, a "priority-inbox" (with priorities determined by what Google *thinks* is important to you), and a "promotions" inbox--which is basically a place for spammers who have paid a fee (think of this as a "tax" on spammers to be labeled as "promoters" rather than spammers) to hawk thier wares--so if you subscribe to (for argument's sake), one magazine about motorcycling, you will now receive solicitations for every kind of motorcycle related product under the sun, all in your Promotions Inbox.

On top of that, don't get me started on how much gmail's "new and improved" Compose/Reply windows sucks s---.

At least part of escalade and Courtney's problems are coming from these new "features".  It is tricky, but at least the "three inbox" issue can be solved, if you go and tinker in the Settings.  The crappy Compose/Reply window (which probably contributes to the problem of magically acquring new people in the distribution chain whom you can't cut out) sadly appears to be bere to stay.

I've been a gmail user since it was in private beta.  Now, between the NSA crap, and these new "features" being crammed down our throats, I'm looking for alternatives.  If there were something out there that was as easy to use, and not so in bed with the Feds, I'd change in a heartbeat.

hushmail

Hush is not as secure as they would like you to believe.

The response was to question about a fairly friendly interface.  I didn't suggest it for security, I wouldn't consider sending email to be secure in the least, no matter who says that it is unless you actually control everything end-to-end.