Monday, July 27, 2020

Happy 11th Blogoversary!

Happy Blogoversary to Nutfield Genealogy!

Eleven years ago I was brave and pushed the button that posted the first story to this blog.  I had been working on the story for a few days, and didn't know when to go live on line.  We had cousins from Spain coming to visit for a few weeks, and I knew I was going to be busy, but I clicked on that link and...

I didn't know I'd still be doing this eleven years later!

The first people who read my blog were family members.  Then a few days (or weeks, I can't remember) later complete strangers were reading and commenting on the blog posts.  That was a weird, but fun experience.  Then a great bunch of folks known as the "GeneaBloggers" started following my blog.  We all became Facebook friends, and tweeted and Google+ed (remember G+?) each other's posts. Then local people in New Hampshire and New England began to read Nutfield Genealogy.  Soon I began to meet up with some of my virtual friends in person, and at genealogy clubs and conferences.   And well... the rest is history.  Pun intended.

I'm approaching my 4 millionth page view on my Blog according to the statistics.  Which is great since my readership has declined as I have slowed down on posting over the past year.  I've posted almost 10,000 comments, and deleted a large number of spammy comments, too.

My five most popular blog posts (according to the Blogger statistics):

#1   "A Favorite Christmas Gift!  You might Want One, Too!" published 30 December, 2012:
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-favorite-christmas-gift-you-might.html    This one isn't particularly genealogical (unfortunately), but more of a craft idea.  It went viral on Pinterest and social media and now has nearly a quarter million hits.  Check it out!

#2   "Flora Stewart - Black History Month in Londonderry" published 17 February 2011:
https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/02/flora-stewart-black-history-month-in.html  This is a story about a controversial photograph published about a former slave who lived to be over 100 years old in Londonderry over 100 years ago.  The vital records are conflicting on her real age.

#3  "2020 Events for the 400th Anniversary of the Arrival of the Mayflower", dated October 4, 2018.  I won't publish the link here for this blog post since most of the information on this is now incorrect due to the pandemic cancellations.  A more accurate version was published here: https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2020/05/updated-mayflower-400-schedule.html  and here  https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/p/mayflower-400th.html 

#4  "10 Unexpected Places to Find Family History Online", was published 2 February 2015 at this link:  https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/02/10-unexpected-places-to-find-family.html  It is still popular, and receives smaller amounts of readers as the years go by.

#5  "Patriot to Passenger Project" published 17 September 2018 at this link:  https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/09/patriot-to-passenger-project.html  is a story about the project that connects a DAR patriot with possible Mayflower passenger connections. Many people have contributed their patriots and Mayflower ancestors to this project, and many more use this project to seek connections for application to both lineage societies.

The next five most popular stories on my blog all have to do with Mayflower passengers, and the upcoming 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower at Cape Cod.  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic most of the 400th anniversary events have been moved to 2021 and will be commemorated as the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, which took place in the fall of 1621.  Although the cancellation and postponement of these events has been disappointing, it is encouraging to know that the general public is still following the Mayflower news and is interested in learning more about the Separatist Pilgrims and in attending the events next year.

I have the links to five permanent pages (look up under the image at the top of this blog page to see the links) on my home page.  The most popular page is the first one "Surnames from my Family Tree"  https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/p/surnames-to-9-generations.html  There are hundreds of surnames listed in two groups (my Paternal lineage and my Maternal lineage) with links to the "Surname Saturday" post for that surname.  This page has received over 30,000 hits and lots of email as folks make cousin connections.  Take a peek and see if we have a common ancestor!

Thank you for reading and following Nutfield Genealogy!


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Cite/Link to this post:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Happy 11th Blogoversary!", Nutfield Genealogy, posted July 27, 2020, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2020/07/happy-11th-blogoversary.html: accessed [access date]).

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