Friday, December 28, 2012

Review of Blog Stats for 2012

I find it interesting to review my blog stats and see what posts resonated with my visitors. Below are the top 3 posts viewed from 2012. If you missed them the first time around, here is an opportunity to catch up.


Audience demographics is another very, very interesting blog statistic that continues to befuddle me. My page views by country are:
  1. United States
  2. Russia
Why Russia? I have no idea. I have no Russian heritage, although I would love to find out differently. I have mentioned Moscow in 1 post out of 571 posts. To my knowledge that is the only reference to anything remotely related to Russia on my blog. I'm not complaining, I'm just very curious about this. So if you are reading this post from Russia, Hello! I'm glad you stopped by.



Monday, December 24, 2012

Dear Ancestry.com

Dear Ancestry.com,

I have a request to make and I am sure, no, I am positive I'm not alone in this request. I would like for you to craft a campaign to increase user adoption of your Member Connect feature. While you may feel that the adoption rate among your membership is sufficient to justify its existence I, personally, am not feeling the love. This situation continues to cause me undue anxiety and I hope with your intervention this anxiety can be lessened. 

I send messages to most Member Connect users that have trees matching mine for multiple generations and appear to have their facts straight. The problem arises when they simply do not reply. Why don't they reply? Do they not see that they are getting messages? Do they not know how to reply? Do they not realize their identity and email addresses are hidden from me and have nothing to fear? Could it be they think Member Connect is some kind of social media mumbo jumbo?

Generally I am a pretty likable person so this non-response bothers me. I also have 11 years of research to share with others. All I'm asking for is a little collaboration to further our research. So you can see and surely understand my befuddlement over this situation. 

I often see you tweet "what can Ancestry.com do better?" and then you ask me to click a link to provide my feedback. Well here you have it, this is my feedback. I love everything about your site and your product. Oh no, wait...could you make it easy for me to print all 417 items in my Shoebox to PDF? 

I appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to a speedy resolution. 

Sincerely,

Jenna

Monday, December 17, 2012

Blog Caroling Celebrate Me Home


This is a rewind carol from Blog Caroling 2009. This is still my favorite Christmas song and offers fitting wishes for many this week.


Following footnoteMaven's lead, here is my blog caroling post.




Celebrate Me Home by Kenny Loggins

Home for the holidays
I believe I've missed each and every face
Come on and play my music
Let's turn on every love light in the place

It's time I found myself
Totally surrounded in your circles
Whoa, my friends

Please, celebrate me home
Give me a number,
Please, celebrate me home
Play me one more song
That I'll always remember
And I can recall
Whenever I find myself all alone
I can sing me home

Uneasy highway
Travelin where the Westerly winds can fly
Somebody tried to tell me
But the men forgot to tell me why

I gotta count on being gone
Come on woman, come on daddy
Be what you want from me
I'm this strong I'll be weak

Please, celebrate me home
Give me a number
Please, celebrate me home
Play me one more song
That I'll always remember
I can recall
Whenever I find myself too all alone
I can make believe I've never gone
I never know where I belong
Sing me home

Please, celebrate me home
Give me a number
Please, celebrate me home
Play me one more song

Celebrate, Celebrate
Celebrate, Celebrate
Celebrate, Celebrate
Celebrate me home

Please, celebrate me home
Please, celebrate me home
Well I'm finally here
But I'm bound to roam
Come on celebrate me home
Well I'm finally here
But I'm bound to roam
Come on celebrate me home
Well I'm finally here
But I'm bound to roam
Come on celebrate me home
Please, celebrate me home
Please, celebrate me home
Please, celebrate me home
Please, celebrate me home

Sunday, December 16, 2012

GHLL Resources Belgium & Belize Updated




Genealogy and History Data Updates December 17 - December 24, 2012.

The domestic, international, surname and state pages are updated. Be sure to visit our International Gateway page. We have amassed a large collection of resources for research across the globe.







Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Blogging for Cousins? How about blogging for help?


Often genealogy and family history bloggers refer to their blog posts as "cousin bait." In other words, the blogger is trying to leverage the power of search and social media to catch the attention of potential cousins with a few well chosen keywords in their posts. It works very well, I've had cousins and other researchers working on the same family line find me through my blog and that is a rewarding feeling.

While I do hope my blog finds new cousins, I'm not opposed to leveraging the power of search and social media for some good, old fashioned help! This approach can work equally if not better than using your blog as bait.

I will post about a particular ancestor or challenge I am facing in my research and ask straight up "does anyone have any suggestions?" I can't think of one post that someone, from somewhere didn't offer to help, make a suggestion or point me in the right direction. The help doesn't just fall into your lap, it can take some time but it's usually always worth the wait.

There is no shame in asking for help, we are all in this together. Just remember to pay that help forward.

Monday, December 3, 2012

GHLL Weekly Updates




Genealogy and History Data Updates December 3 - December9, 2012.

The domestic, international, surname and state pages are updated. Be sure to visit our International Gateway page. We have amassed a large collection of resources for research across the globe.







Sunday, December 2, 2012

Review and Thank You to the 2012 GHLL Guest Bloggers


The GHLL (Genealogy and History Links Library) had a big year in 2012. Increased website traffic and interest in the site saw a definite improvement causing much excitement among the volunteers who maintain the site.

A large part of that increased traffic was due to our guest bloggers for the "Branching Out" newsletter. Please take a moment to review the topics, they are so varied I'm sure there is something that will catch your attention.

We appreciate each and every blogger's submission. Thanks for adding life to our newsletter.