Thanks, Eowyn. That certainly is not at all clear in the Google help at the link Google sent me today warning that My personal account on Google+ was being shut down as were all Google + Communities. There is no mention at all of Google Groups, even though they go to the trouble to specifically list some other Google services that will not be shut down. Expect newts like me to ask this again, as they likely won't see the history of questions about this, I didn't.