Six Years of Blogging about Genealogy

“My Other Blog - Family History and Genealogy" celebrated its 6th anniversary yesterday, September 30, 2016. On that same day in 2010, the very first post, just under 400 words and titled “Yet Another Blog” was published.

Well, six years is technically correct but it is also true that I did not publish a post for almost three years between November 2013 and September 2016. After working diligently for the first three years, I began to slow down in 2013 and only delivered five posts that year. Then I stopped. Was I burned out or maybe just needed a break? Not sure, but I was running out of big ideas for new posts. 

Farms at Hafslo, Sogn og Fjorde, Norway. Home of my
ancestors; connection found, thanks in part to this blog.

This site has strived to write solid history "stories" about my family lines and individual family members, most of whom are not well known in the genealogy world on the web. In addition, I would also write a short, non-specific and non-family, post every once in a while. These posts let me talk about the process or something of interest that happened during the search (or something wonderful that just fell in my lap). Toward the end, I was publishing the five-part Holcombe story, and with that, was already deviating from writing about ancestors unknown to the word - as that family (especially the colonial generations) are very well known to the internet and genealogists. My needed break turned into a long slumber but I did get an occasional comment to answer and sometimes another family connection was made and new information gathered. So it was not totally dormant!

Here are some stats after six years:

• 47 Posts
• 7 multi-part, in-depth family stories (22 total posts).
• 12 short articles on interesting individuals.
• 13 special interest / general posts.
• Over 80,000 page views.
• Numerous contacts with distant cousins or others with family connections.
• Shared information, photos and documents.
• Six new stories in development - the colonial families.

What to do next? There are certainly more family characters to write about but those first 34 posts covered a lot of ground and touched most of my known family history. Still, I felt a bit guilty not keeping up with the blog. I know I should have written at least a couple of stories each year, if for no other reason than to keep the blog fresh. One commenter, looking for family information, wondered if I was still active. Noting the dates of the last post and total lack of activity, she probably thought that I had abandoned my effort or maybe I was dead.

So, I have been thinking about the whole thing and decided that I should take it up again (that thought process has been developing for a number of months). To round out the site, it seemed obvious that I could expand on the colonial families related to my Holcombe line. Even though these families tend to have a lot of information already available on the web and even on this site. Some of the content may be redundant but I am having a go at it anyway. I wrote an introduction of sorts that will link all of these families. That intro has already been posted and can be found here. A couple of posts in the group, about the Bliss and Chapin families, are mostly complete and will be posted soon.

So, I am on my way again but I am going to keep is slow and hopefully steady. A good way to honor the blog and start year seven.

Additional Reading:
Two Years of Blogging about Genealogy
The Big Peterson Family Reunion
Ode to the Genealogist