It’s our Blogiversary

Another year has rolled around and here it is –  Our 5th Blogiversary! 

My first blog post was on July 5, 2011. When I posted that very first blog entry, I had no expectation at all, that the blog would still be motoring along, five years later. Also it didn’t occur to me that I would come to love blogging, and feel very proud of what the blog has become.

The 4th Blogiversary post from 2015, explains the reasons why the blog started so there is no need to go over that again. In recent days, as I have glanced over previous posts, it has occurred to me, that much has happened in my life, genealogically, in the past 5 years.

I have met up with many, many cousins who contacted me through the blog. This has given me more joy than I can ever say, but I do wish for more spare time, to be able to make face to face contact more often.This is on the list for my retirement years – when and if they arrive.

A huge highlight, was blogging about Rootstech2016, held in Salt Lake City USA, and attending that conference as a geneablogger. I wore my blogger beads very proudly and met numerous genies and fellow bloggers from around the world.

After taking a short time away from blogging, due to work pressures, the AFFHO Congress 2015 held in Canberra, revived my enthusiasm for genealogy and made me realise how much I had  missed both the research and community involvement during my hiatus of about a year.

The first Unlock The Past Cruise was another highlight, combining genealogy conferences aboard ship while cruising around New Zealand with daily stopovers in major cities. There have been many of these genealogy cruises since this first one, and I hope very much to be able to once again attend.

My favourite post? That is difficult, as there are a few. But below are a couple that I am proud of:

The story of family member  Ellenor Calnan and the Bangka Island Massacre

The short life and murder of Ellen Boyle  is a project that I have spent quite a bit of time over. There is still more research to be done and will be further reports  on this dreadful event in our family history.

Report of the Three Lost Children of Daylesford has had the most views. This event does not belong in my family history at all. When I came across it, I was captivated and have done quite a bit of research into the events surrounding this story.

In 2015 and 2016, I participated in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge posting on a subject every day in April, except Sunday. My subject in 2015 was the names in my family history and in 2016 I chose to blog about towns in Victoria.

Finishing up on a couple of stats. In the past five years there have been 241 posts which have been viewed 32,114 times by 11,488 visitors.

Huge thanks go to all of these visitors and readers, many who have become regular readers and friends. I feel quite gob smacked and a little embarassed that this tiny blog receives such great support.