Celebrating 8 years of Blogging, The Past and the Future

Lowell, MA, along the Merrimack River

I was reminded recently, that my 8th anniversary, (or blogiversary) of blogging was upon me. My readers know I haven't been writing lately, but I thought I'd share a few stats, and perhaps these would prompt me to write again.

Currently, I have 813 email subscribers and 266 followers. To me, those numbers are pretty impressive, especially since I only wrote seven posts in 2017 versus 262 in 2011. However, in these past years, amazingly I have over 540,000 page views.

I began writing genealogy-related posts, mostly about my ancestors, then went to cemetery reports, library visits to report about their genealogy collections, old houses, historical societies, a lot of posts about Lowell, Massachusetts, and then to things to see and do in New England. I thought the Travel and Tourism posts would be more popular, but in looking at my daily top 10 hits, I think genealogy topics still reign (the list of my top 10 is below).

What's coming? To begin with, I'll start with my trips during the past year, they include a castle, two athenaeums, a library or two, three Shaker villages, several historical houses, an old fort, a historical society, a historical village, a few cemetery visits, and perhaps other sites I have forgotten about. Please remember, I am not a scholar nor a writer, so most posts are what I consider light.

I have gotten interested in DNA research, and plan on contacting more people either through Ancestry or GEDmatch.  I have over 27,000 4th cousins or closer, my closest is a first cousin, (I know her); a second cousin, (no tree) I wrote to but no response; a third cousin (no tree), we communicated, but she doesn't know the names of her grandparents; a 4th cousin (5th one listed), has shared information with me since 2000.

In closing, there are two things I want to say. First, I'm thanking all 1,000 or so people who hoped I would have something to share with them via my blog. I appreciate your interest in what I have to say, or just want to see photos of New England. Second, because I don't know what you would like to read about, please let me know. I would love it if you could give me insight into what you want, and I'll try my best to write about it, or point you in the right direction. Many, many thanks to all of you.

My tip 10 blogs, as determined by Google (may be seen on the right sidebar). The links are active.
          

Surname Saturday -- LAY (From Connecticut to Ver... May 22, 2010, 4 comments	3875
Lexington, Massachusetts -- One monument with 77... Oct 10, 2014, 13 comments	2469
First Settlers of Newbury, Massachusetts Aug 26, 2013, 21 comments	2238
Founder's Monument -- Watertown, Massachusetts Sep 20, 2013, 2 comments	1157
Each Example is Different, and None Were Done on C... Sep 8, 2016, 10 comments	913
Grandmother and Me-See Below Jul 25, 2010, 12 comments (See photo below)	888
Brick Walls of Mine, If You Solve, I Pay Feb 22, 2014, 5 comments	876
10 Things I Wished I Knew When I Started My Blog Sep 29, 2016, 25 comments	847
An Athenaeum -- A great combination of Art, Book... Sep 6, 2017

   

Looking Forward

Photo by Joe Beine and used with permission.

I absolutely love the above photo and thought others would like seeing it as well.  It caught my eye when he posted it to facebook.  For other great photos, please view his site at Flicker.

My plans for February are not as aggressive as they were for January.  I'll write an article about the Barbour Collection, Connecticut researchers might like this, and reports about two lectures, on different days, I hope to attend, as long as the weather cooperates.  My first topics to write about when I began blogging in October, may finally get written as well.  Nothing too long or complex, but I hope entertaining.


A few people seemed to enjoy my last Wordless Wednesday with the photo of Ansel Adams.  For the month of February I will post photos of celebrities and/or various autographs.  Two presidents, a football player and a singer.


I am going to devote time entering photos into Find-A-Grave.  It needs to get done.  The process takes a long time, because I need to scan the photos, write cemetery information on the back, enter the information into the site, as well as put the photo into my Family Tree Maker.


Since the Winter Olympics will be on television for about two weeks, I will be spending a lot of time watching the events; therefore I will be cutting back on the posts.


I was hoping I was related to Scott Brown, the new Senator from Massachusetts, but I haven't found a connection yet.  However, Princess Diana and I share the same common American ancestor, and I think I will do a post about that.


Randy's Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, wasn't so fun for me.  I struggled to make the Ancestral Calendar of Birthdays (now changed from January to February).  If an entire name is in All Caps, it is a direct ancestor of mine.  Now, I hope I can remember how to do it for March, but if I do, this will be a part of Looking Forward every month.  Randy thanks for the information.  But, I need to work more with it, since it didn't pick up everybody born in February.