Celebrating Three Blogging Years - Thankful Thursday

August 21st is my third  Blogiversary!   It has been a great three years and has far exceeded my expectations.

I relish the blog experience of telling my family history stories to a wider audience (instead of boring my family), discovering this different style of writing, coming up with a title and content that appeals - and making new contacts with fellow enthusiasts.

When I started, my main concern was "Is anyone finding this and more importantly actually reading it?" A few arms were twisted with friends and relations to sign up as my first followers. But let's face it, although we enjoy writing,  recognition from others is a great motivator, and I must admit to being an eager reader of comments received.   

My initial target was one posting per week.  I thought I would soon run out of material, but the prompts from www.geneabloggers.com and inspiration from other bloggers has been so stimulating,  Retirement helps! 


What have been the milestones in my third  blogging year?

• Being listed among "Top 50 Genealogical Blogs you Need to Read" in the  Australian magazine "Inside History".  A special thank you to my Australian readers.

 

• Achieving  103 followers - thank you to everyone for signing up. 

• Becoming  a regular contributor to Sepia Saturday which give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history through photographs. I am amazed at the ingenious interpretations of the weekly themes,   and the supportive comments from fellow Sepians.

• Taking part in the April 2013 A-Z Challenge.   My theme was  "A Sense of Place" which was a chance to reminisce on places I had visited, or were connected with my family history.  Keeping up with a posting a day (Sunday off) was certainly a challenge but I made it!  

• This past year I have spent more time writing than researching  and was pleased to complete three volumes - on my father's life and on my mother's Danson family - with more material for blog posts.

 

What hasn't worked?

• Unfortunately this past year has been marked by a big increase in spam comments and I have put some moderation in place.  The worst effect is the impact on my page views.  I used to check  very regularly my statistics page to see which posts most appealed to readers, but there is no point now as the figures are so out of kilter.   

And Next Year?

• My  brain is still buzzing  with ideas for both research and writing up, so I look forward to my fourth year in such an all-absorbing hobby. 

Thank you to everyone for their support.   
I appreciate it very much.