Can It Really Be 15 Years?

I haven't been keeping up well with my blog during the past few weeks, but I knew I had to write a post today.  It is my 15th blogiversary, after all.

Lisa Hork Gorrell and I started our blogs the same day, lo those 15 years ago.  She started a couple additional ones with specific focuses, but I've kept only this general one, lumping all of my posts together.

Who knew we would last this long?

I didn't keep quite the same pace in 2025 as I did the previous year, but I had 125 posts, which averages out to about one every three days.  That isn't too bad.

I posted many more photographs from the "photo bonanza" that my sister's niece scanned.  I still haven't received the boxes of original photos, so I don't know if anything was missed or if there really are two copies of all the photos that have two scans.  But I have identified a lot more of the photos and used some unusual resources to determine more information about them.

I also wrote several posts based on "national day of . . ." prompts.  I found a few sites that promote these days (I'm pretty sure they all make money by getting companies and people to pay to have a "day of whatever" and then advertise the days on the sites).  I've discovered that they can act as prompts to remember events and stories from my family and my own life, so I've written about them.  Documenting ourselves is something genealogists are reminded to do, right?

And of course I sprinkled several Wordless Wednesdays and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun posts in there also.  Those are staples for getting me thinking of something I can write about.

I have a lot more ideas, too:  research I haven't written about yet, more "days of", more great photos to share.  I'm going to try to catch up during the next month and get back to my old pace.

Illustration:  https://pixabay.com/illustrations/billiard-striped-ball-brown-15-1433354/

Top 10 Posts of 2024

I'm only a little late figuring this out.  We're just barely past halfway through January.  Now, if it were all the way at the end of January, that would really have been dragging my feet.  The big news is that this is the first time I've posted my Top 10 since the 2020 listing.  I guess I really did have a few rough years in there.

So, without further ado, what were the ten most popular topics (by readership) on my blog this past year?

Starting the list at #10 was the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge to use FamilySearch Full-Text Search.  My searches didn't go well, but my frustrations apparently engaged people.

#9 was another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post, this time about the best newspaper article I had found for my family history.  One of the articles had a photo of me!

Coming in at #8 is one more Saturday Night Genealogy Fun story (are we picking up on a theme here?), with five "different" facts about family members.  This gave me an opportunity to mention that my maternal grandfather supposedly played baseball with Jackie Robinson.

Who could have guessed that a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post would be #7?  This one asked us to write about a day we had fun with genealogy, and it definitely was fun the day I found my great-great-grandparents' Russian marriage record.

The #6 post has nothing to do with Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  It was when I celebrated my lucky 13th blogiversary (along with Lisa Hork Gorrell, of course).

#5 is my post lamenting some of the recent changes I have seen occur at the FamilySearch Center at which I volunteer, and pondering what might be coming in the future.

For the #4 post we return to Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, when I listed my genealogy goals for 2024.  I was trying to be cautious and optimistic at the same time.

And another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge comes in at #3.  This time it was the best research achievement I had had during the previous month.

The #2 post was when I noticed a problem with the year in the index of Russian records posted on JewishGen.  I haven't seen any changes to the index since writing about that.

And the #1 post in popularity on my blog in 2024 was when I explained all of the things I am not doing with AI in genealogy for, you guessed it, Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  (And I'm still not doing them.)

So last year seven of the top ten posts were for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  That's still not surprising, not only because lots of people read Randy's blog but also because I was almost rebooting my blog after a few years of sparse posting.

I generally don't get a lot of comments on my posts, even those that are read a lot.  The #1 and #2 posts on the popularity list were tied for the most comments this year.

My 14th Blogiversary!

Today is my 14th blogiversary — the 14th anniversary of the day that I began my blog.  And it's amazing to me that I am still writing a blog!  Me, the person who hates to write.  So I started thinking about why I am still doing it.

It comes down to the fact that I like to tell stories.  Admittedly, I prefer saying them to writing them, but I don't reach as many people that way.  And writing is in many ways a more permanent method of sharing them.

Yes, I know that the Internet is a very impermanent thing.  What's here today can be gone tomorrow, and often is.  But I download and save my blog (semi)regularly, and blogs have a tendency to stay around even after they've been abandoned by their authors.  So I think it'll hang around for a while.

And I have been able to share!  I discovered that several of my family members actually read my posts and sometimes even comment on them.  Plus some of my genealogy colleagues do also.  Occasionally random people find me and have something to add.

In some ways having the blog isn't that difficult, because I can write about anything I want.  But in some ways it is, because I actually have to sit down and write.  I have lots of ideas, but during the past few years I've had many health issues, and they've often interfered with the process of getting the idea onto the computer.  I think I'm finally coming out of that now, and last year I wrote more than the two previous years combined.  I was able to complete the series about births, marriages, and deaths in my family.  And I still have even more things I want to write about and more research to do!

Like all writers, I have posts that work and that people respond to, and others that seem to just fade into the background.  But that's the nature of the beast.  I'm happy when I get those responses, but I don't allow myself to be crushed when I don't.

And it wouldn't be my blogiversary if I didn't mention Lisa Hork Gorrell, who started her blog on the same day I did, lo these many years ago.  Congratulations, Lisa!  We're both still writing!

"14" image by b0red and used under the Pixabay Content License.

Lucky 13th Blogiversary

Well, it's lucky 13!  Lisa Hork Gorrell and I started our blogs on January 15, 2011, and we're both still at it.  The past two years for me have been much skimpier on posts (and I didn't even manage to post for my blogiversary last year), but I'm still here, plugging along, writing about my family and family history in general.  I hit 2,000 posts sometime last year.

During the past couple of years most of my posts have been for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun and Wordless Wednesday, two memes I've followed for a while, but there hasn't been much else.

I fully intend that this year will be different.  I have so many things I want to write about!  I want to finish up my family events.  I have something like 6,000 photographs from the photo bonanza that I plan to identify and discuss.  Gotta track down my cousin who was given up for adoption, figure out my biological great-grandfather, find more documents for my family in the Maryland Motherlode and the New York City Historical Vital Records Project, write down more family stories . . . geez, I better get going!

Eleven Years of Blogging

Yup, that's right!  Today is my 11th blogiversary.  It almost slipped by me, because I have not been keeping up with my blog as well as I would like.  I keep trying to get healthy, and that just doesn't seem to be working.

I was surprised when I saw how many posts I managed to write last year:  265!  That's sorta kinda close to one post every other day, which I don't think I've accomplished before.  It was primarily due to picking up again on my project to write about every birth, marriage, and death that I have in my genealogy database.  And I hit that total even though the last date I documented was November 15, which is when those annoying health problems popped up again.

So now I'm behind on that again, behind on Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, even behind on my end-of-the-year thank yous and statistics.  On the other hand, I did finally write about my Revolutionary War ancestor Moses Mulliner, which I had been intending to do for several years.  I also described the detective work I did to track down my father's youngest half-sister, so I could give her several photos of herself and her mother.  But I have a lot of catching up to do when I get my energy back, which I fully intend to do soon.

Like I always say, hope springs eternal!

How Did That Happen?

I can't believe I'm writing this.  Today is my 10th blogiversary!  Lisa Hork Gorrell and I started our blogs on January 15, 2011.  They say time flies when you're having fun, but I am amazed to realize that we've been blogging for a whole ten years.

Admittedly, the past year hasn't been as productive as some earlier ones.  What with my shoulder surgery last August and the pain leading up to it, I definitely have not posted as much as I wanted to.  I have this long list of topics I want to write about, but I still have trouble finding the energy to follow up on them.

I still managed to squeeze out a post about every three days.  (It's harder to count the posts now that Blogger has "improved" [cough] the platform interface.  Whereas before 100 posts were shown on a page, now it's one of those endless pages that keeps growing as long as you keep scrolling.  Highly annoying, if you ask me.  Which they obviously didn't.)  Most of those were Wordless Wednesdays and Saturday Night Genealogy Funs (thank heavens for regular memes).

I'm happy to say, however, that I finally did write up a couple of the stories I had on my list.  I described the tortuous path I took to find my great-great-grandmother immigrating to the United States (traveling with one more child than I had expected), and I celebrated my maternal grandfather on his birthday.  I also reported on a surprising DNA match on my mother's (Jewish) side of the family, and posted about my aunt's son on his 75th birthday, keeping my fingers crossed that I can find him (or what happned to hiim) before my 95-year-old aunt passes away.  And there were a few additional original, nonmeme posts as well.  Progress!

So it's on to the next year, with more plans to get my schedule back on track.  Hope springs eternal!

Happy 9th Blogiversary to Me!

It's January 15, the blogiversary date I share with Lisa Hork Gorrell (because we started our blogs on the same day in 2011) and with Dick Eastman, of all people (who has been doing it far longer than we have).  It's the 9th blogiversary for Lisa and me, and 9 is one of my lucky numbers, so I think this will be a lucky year for my blog.

I passed 1,500 posts this past year (and didn't even notice it at the time!), which on the one hand is quite an accomplishment for someone who doesn't enjoy writing, but on the other isn't as good as I had been doing.  I averaged fewer than one post every three days or so in 2019.  I have accumulated a long list of stories I want to write about, however, so I have enough material to work with.  I'm going to work hard on posting those stories so they aren't forgotten.

Top 10 Posts of 2019

The new year is a time for retrospectives, and I have been looking at my top 10 posts for the past few years.  I still haven't gotten back to a regular rhythm with my blog, and I only posted about once every three days in 2019.  On the positive side, I am still posting, so I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself!

Like last year, posts for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenges figured prominently on the list—six of the ten, in fact.  A big change is that no Wordless Wednesdays are on the list at all, whereas three appeared in the 2018 list.

I noticed that all of the posts were from the first quarter of the year.  I think that has more to do with the "long tail", where stories continue to engage readers well after their initial posting, than with the actual content of the stories themselves.

Two posts tied at #9 in 2019.  First was the listing of significant anniversaries I found in my family tree for the year.  Second was a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge to find my longest ancestral marriage (which turned out to be 61 years).

At #8 is a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post, to choose an ancestral line and determine the birth order of each of your ancestors in it.  I was able to put together seven generations.

#7 is another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun entry, this one to post a favorite photograph.  At the time I posted it I did not know who the family members were in the photo, but one of my cousins recognized her grandmother and grandaunt!

At #6 is a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge to put together a line of photographs through multiple gneerations.  I was able to find eight generations of photos on one of my Jewish lines, which really surprised me.

#5 is yet another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post, about how my parents met, timed right after Valentine's Day.  Both of my parents are dead now, so if I want any more details about their meeting I'll need to talk to my cousin, who was there when they met.

The Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge that came in at #4 asked everyone how they got started doing genealogy research.

At #3 we take a break from Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, because that post celebrated my 8th blogiversary.

#2 was the top Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post, where Randy asked readers about their best discoveries in 2018 and research challenges for 2019.  I have to admit that I'm still stuck on the research challenges I listed then.

I'm actually quite happy that my #1 post last year was the one for my mother's yahrzeit.  I write annually about my mother on her yahrzeit, the anniversary of her death.  It is Jewish tradition to commemorate a deceased family member on that person's death date on the Jewish calendar.  My 2019 post was about advice my mother gave me on the ten things you should always carry with you (even though I only remembered seven of them!).

My posts didn't generate a large number of comments last year, but the one with the most was when I discussed my very, very blended family.

And the 8th Blogiversary Rolls Around

Wow, it has been eight years already?!  How time flies when we're having fun!  Lisa Hork Gorrell and I started our blogs the same day, after attending Craig Siulinski's class on blogging held at the California Genealogical Society.

My primary focuses are Jewish, black, newspaper, and forensic genealogical research, but I've posted about a lot of other subjects over the years, ranging from Africa to Ypres (France), Aaron Lansky to Zooey Deschanel, Abell to Zook (family surnames), and abolitionists to Zundapp (motorcycle).  I'm close to 1,500 posts at this point!

I've been having some health problems, so I wasn't as productive last year as I wanted to be.  My project to document the births, marriagees, and deaths in my family tree fell off at the beginning of June (also caused by my hard drive failing), and I've missed the past two seasons of Who Do You Think You Are?  I don't know if I'll be able to catch up on the latter, but I'm hoping to restart the former this June and pick up where I left off.  I also really need to return to the saga of Emma Margaret (Shaefer) Petit La Forêt, whose file I finally have found after my move from Oakland.  There's always so much to write about!

Well, it is a new year, which means new opportunities to try again.  So off we go!

Time for My 7th Blogiversary

The wheels of time have continued to turn, somehow another year has passed, and amazingly enough I am still writing my blog.  I now have more than 1,200 posts under my belt, covering topics ranging from savior of the Yiddish language Aaron Lansky to Zundapp motorcycles.  My productivity fell off a little during the final third of 2017 due to my move from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon, but I'm going to more than make up for that with this year's project to document the births, marriages, and deaths in my main family tree file for every day of the year (what was I thinking?!).  Only two weeks in and it's already led to some interesting family discoveries, such as the fact that my half-sister's grandmothers had the same birthday (which she had not realized).  There are always new things to learn!  I'm looking forward to sharing my perspectives on another year of genealogy and family history and welcome you along for the ride.  Thanks for stopping by to read my blog, and I hope you enjoy what you find here.

Wow, It's My 6th Blogiversary!

Photo by Ardfern*

I know there are lots of bloggers out there who have been writing longer than I have, but I'm just amazed that I've been able to stick to it for this long.  It's now a regular part of my routine.

I hit a major milestone this past year:  my 1,000th post.  I looked over my labels to see what I had posted about the most.  First I realized I have a lot of labels, probably because I'm an indexer, and I like a good amount of detail in my indices.  Also, many of my posts have multiple labels.  That said, I was not too surprised to see that the highest number for a label is 296 (almost 30% of my total posts) for Wordless Wednesday, a meme where I don't have to write.

Trailing well behind that with only half the total (150) is Sellers.  The next few significant numbers are for cousins (108), children (104), newspaper research (99), and Meckler (89).  So even though I cover a wide range of topics on my blog, most of the big numbers relate to my own family.  I like that.  And it makes sense that newspaper research is high on the list; after all, I am the genealogy newspaper queen of the Bay Area!

Along with Wordless Wednesday, two other memes I regularly write under are Treasure Chest Thursday and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  And I still have a long list of other topics I want to write about.  It looks like I'll be able to keep going with my blog for a few more years.


*Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The image has been cropped but not otherwise changed.

The Traditional Gift for the Fifth Blogiversary Is Cupcakes?

Well, well, well, look what's here.  It's my fifth blogiversary today!  I'm still trucking along, talking about genealogy and having a lot of fun.  This year I"m celebrating with chocolate cake (see it to the left?).  I even had a real chocolate chip-chocolate cupcake today, and boy it tasted good.  Celebrating my blogiversary at SLIG was just an extra bonus.

I passed the 800-post mark in December, which really surprised me.  I have to admit that I am more comfortable writing than when I started, even though I sometimes still need a kick in the pants.  I have lots of stories I'm still working on that I want to share.  I honestly don't know when I'll run out of stories, which is a good thing, right?  Between my own research, working with my extended family members on their research, my volunteer work, and all the other things I do, I'm sure I will always find interesting stories in genealogy.

Thanks again to everyone for reading my blog and being such great supporters.  Genealogy is about sharing, and I appreciate you sharing your time when you stop by.  I hope you enjoy the information and photos I share.

By the way, the real traditional gift for a fifth anniversary is wood.  I don't think that "would" be quite as tasty as a cupcake, though.

My Fourth Blogiversary Already?

I think this year I want to sing:

Happy fourth blogiversary to me!
Happy fourth blogiversary to me!
Happy fourth blogiversary, dear Janice,
Happy fourth blogiversary to me!

(No comments about being out of tune!)

Wow, four years later, and I'm still writing a blog.  How did that happen?  I'm the person who hates to write.  But I still have all these stories I want to share, so here I am, and starting another year.

I've recently had the opportunity to do a lot of research on my own family, and it's been so much fun.  I've found several new lines (even if most of them are more Germans!), and even connected with some cousins through DNA databases.  I'm looking forward to posting about my discoveries, along with the regular broad range of topics I normally cover.

I really appreciate the support I get from the people who read and comment on my blog.  Thanks for being there!  It's so great to have a genealogy community to share my passion with!

It's That Blogiversary Time of Year

Time flies, doesn't it?  Somehow three years have passed since I started my blog.  I am really happy I've been able to keep up the same pace — I'm still averaging about one post every other day.  I don't post as often as I would like (amazing how work gets in the way of that!), but I'm working on doing more.

I realized when I looked down the list of labels I have for my posts that I cover a pretty wide range of subjects.  From Africa to Zundapp motorcycles, from Abraham Lincoln to Zooey Deschanel (but nothing starting with an X), and from Chinese Jews to Sikhs, these really are topics that interest me and that I research.

I'm glad I have the opportunity to share my passion for genealogy with others through my blog, and I am honored that people read it and post comments, adding to the conversation.  Thanks for the support, and onward to the next year!

It's My Second Blogiversary!

How did that happen?  I blinked, and whoosh!, another year just flew by.  Today is the second anniversary for my blog!  (Yes, I know, the cake has only one candle, but I couldn't find a cake with two candles.  So there.)  I've actually managed to maintain about the same frequency as last year, posting on average almost every other day.  Who knew I had so much to say about genealogy?  And I have so much more that I want to say, but I somehow never have enough time to write everything I plan.  I'm going to work on that for this year.  In the meantime, I'm thrilled to have two years under my belt, and I appreciate the support from everyone who reads and comments on my blog.  Thank you!

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

I've made it through my first year of blogging!  I am surprised at how quickly the time has passed.  I wouldn't have been able to do it without support from friends such as Thomas Macentee, Carol Townsend, and Craig Siulinski, who have given me lots of advice and moral support.  I looked and discovered I had 175 posts, so I posted on average almost every two days, a lot more than I had realized.  I have appreciated all the comments from people who have posted on my blog, and I'm happy to have been able to share some of my passion for genealogy during this past year.  I look forward to another year full of family history.