Tag: Year In Review

2019: Blog in Review

By just about any measure—including the goals I identified last December—I was an abject failure. I wrote a total of six posts in 2019, including this one. Four of them were written in the first three months of the year and the fifth in August. The rest of the year? Nothing.

I’m not even sure what happened to be totally honest. It felt like I looked up and several months had passed and I hadn’t written anything. I made a note to do better. Then I looked up again, and the year was almost over. Yikes!

It’s not that I haven’t been researching or writing. I just haven’t been posting any of it here on the website. And if I’m honest with myself I don’t know if that will change in 2020. Although I’ve had several ideas for articles, it’s been hard to focus long enough to write them up. I’m hoping that will change, but no promises.

Top 10 Posts in 2019

So, without further ado, here are my top ten, “most viewed” posts in 2019 (as of 12/29):

  1. Ancestry’s Thrulines (New)
  2. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (#8)
  3. Making a Deed Map from Old Metes and Bounds (#7)
  4. 5000 Acres — Where Did It All Go? (#5)
  5. Huber Emigrants (#6)
  6. My 23 and Me Results (New)
  7. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (#3)
  8. 5 Tips to Help You Get the Most Out of Your AncestryDNA Results (#4)
  9. How to Use the Online Land Records at the Pennsylvania State Archives (#2)
  10. Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map (#1)

A lot of old favorites on the list and a couple of more recent additions. Since I didn’t write ten posts in 2019, I can’t do a top ten from this year…

What’s Up for 2020?

My goal for 2020 is simple: Write.

That’s it. Regardless of whether I share it here or not, I need to start putting what I’ve found into something other than my Reunion file and stored source image folders.

So, that’s what I’m going to do. Feel free to ask me about it in the coming year.

2018: Blog in Review

Where did the year go? I swear I blinked and it was gone. Poof! The coming new year means it’s time to look back and review my performance on the blog over the past twelve months and make plans for 2019.

Last year I disappointed myself by not meeting my writing goals for this website. As a result, I set different goals, focused not solely on how much I wrote, but on how I wrote.

Since the most popular posts seem to be those that describe a research tool or explain how to use a genealogy resource, I decided to focus more on these type of posts and those that explained how I’ve addressed a research problem.

I also gave myself permission to write about research subjects that were in progress, rather than waiting until I could share a complete genealogical sketch and biography. This is a particular issue for me—whether I’m writing for the blog or working on my other family writing projects.

The Results

Although I didn’t want to focus on the number of posts written, it’s still a quantitative measure of how involved I was with the blog this year. Here’s what my monthly post count actually looked like in 2018 as compared to 2017 (2018/2017).

  • Jan: 8/12
  • Feb: 5/7
  • Mar: 5/6
  • Apr: 4/3
  • May: 6/6
  • Jun: 5/0
  • Jul: 2/1
  • Aug: 5/0
  • Sep: 2/2
  • Oct: 6/2
  • Nov: 7/0
  • Dec: 8/6
  • Total: 63

Or expressed another way…

bar chart of monthly posts 2017 vs 2018

Monthly posts (2017 vs. 2018)

The chart shows that while I had months where I wrote more in 2017 (blue), I was a somewhat more consistent poster in 2018 (red), averaging a little more than 5 posts/month.

Top Ten Posts in 2018

I like to check which posts are getting visited. It helps to direct the type of posts I write. The point of the blog is to share my family research, of course. But I like to help other researchers, too, if I can.

What content was most popular (aka most visited) this year? This year’s top 10 list looks a lot like last year’s list.

  1. Lancaster County Deed Books Online (#9)
  2. 1916 Aetna Explosives Co. Explosion at Mt. Union Pa. (#10)
  3. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (#6)
  4. Making a Deed Map from Old Metes and Bounds (#8)
  5. Huber Immigrants (#4)
  6. 5,000 Acres—Where Did It All Go? (#5)
  7. 5 Tips to Help You Get the Most from Your AncestryDNA Results (New)
  8. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (#3)
  9. How to Use the Online Lands Records at the PA State Archives (#2)
  10. Pennsylvania Genealogical Map (#1)

It’s not particularly surprising. It’s tough for new posts to generate the number of hits that allows them to compete with posts that have been available for years. Still, there is one new post on this list: #4. There had been another new post on the list when I first started writing this post, but the Aetna explosion post pushed it back out of the top ten. :^o

Both new posts deal with Ancestry—one with getting the most from your DNA results and the other with a new feature. Both subjects have been covered on other blogs and social media, so I’m a little surprised to see how often my posts have been viewed.

Top Ten Posts from 2018

How well did I meet my 2018 goals? Did the posts I wrote include the topics and content focus that I singled out in last year’s blog review?

Let’s take a look at the ten most viewed posts written in the past year (month written and # of visits in parentheses).

  1. Climbing Esther’s Tree (Jun; 32)
  2. Say What? Census Husband Swapping (Jan; 36)
  3. TBT: Using Online Land Office Records at the PA Archives (Aug; 41)
  4. AncestryDNA Updates Ethnicity Estimates (Sep; 52)
  5. Topics from the Timeline – Social Sunday (Apr; 53)
  6. Follow Friday: Here’s What I’ve Been Reading (Jan; 56)
  7. My 23 and Me Results (May; 83)
  8. Quick & Dirty Trees for DNA Matches (Oct; 99)
  9. Online Pennsylvania Deeds at FamilySearch (Jan; 154)
  10. New in Ancestry Trees—Potential Ancestors (Jun; 224)

Most of these posts deal with online genealogy resources’ features and content or how to use them. My Follow Friday and Social Sunday posts share posts from other geneablogs or history/archaeology/genealogy content from other sites around the web. And two of the posts are examples of sharing research or an example from my family research.

When I look at my editorial calendar, I see more posts like these, plus snapshots of research in progress like my articles regarding Jacob Schneider and the Schott, Bowerman, and Rupert families.

All told, I think I did good in 2018. Please, excuse me while I go pat myself on the back. ;^)

Where Did They Come From?

I’ve been discussing which posts were visited this year by the most people. But how did they get here, to this blog?

I know some of you follow along and receive emails when I post new content—thank you for keeping me company on this journey of discovery! But how else did readers get here? According to analytics, a lot of my traffic is from Google and other search engines. But some of it is from Facebook and some is “direct.”

That means some of my posts have been shared on social media and by other bloggers. It’s gratifying to see that someone thinks what I’ve written is worth sharing with other people—friends, family, or their readers, or worthy of comment. I don’t plan it that way, but it is still a thrill when it happens.

So, thank you to to those of you who have shared my posts and/or taken the time to comment on a post! I greatly appreciate it.

What’s Up for 2019 ?

My goals for 2019 can be boiled down to: keep writing. I didn’t always feel inspired to write this year, nor did I always feel like I had something particularly interesting to report. But I met my writing goals anyway and a number of posts that I wrote this year were relatively well-received—or at least viewed repeatedly.

One reader’s comment on “Slow Down, Don’t Move Too Fast” was illuminating and I hope to use it to guide my writing in 2019. She wrote, “It is useful to actually see an example and evaluate it rather than simply [be] told.” This has always been true for me as a reader, too.

Yet, in my own writing I’ll make only oblique references to things that were wrong or not particularly helpful. I don’t delve into them to show why that it is when I’m trying to untangle a research problem, like distinguishing between two Ludwig Shotts or three Michael Benders for instance.

Maybe I need to think about not just writing up my findings, but instead writing a step-by-step on how I reached them. Since part of this exercise is about me becoming a better researcher and the other is sharing with people who want to learn, that might be useful on both counts.

2017: A Year in Review

Can you believe it? It’s that time of year again. A new Year begins less than 24 hours from now. Time to look back at the previous 364 days and assess. So how did I do?

My goals for the blog in 2017 were to: “increase the number of posts I write and to share more.”

Here’s what my monthly post count actually looked like in 2017 as compared to 2016 (2017/2016).

  • Jan: 12/7
  • Feb: 7/3
  • Mar: 6/4
  • Apr: 3/1
  • May: 6/0
  • Jun: 0/4
  • Jul: 1/3
  • Aug: 0/5
  • Sep: 2/5
  • Oct: 2/5
  • Nov: 0/4
  • Dec: 6/9

Based on these numbers, I started off great in 2017, easily outdoing 2016 for the first five months of the year. However, I quickly lost momentum after than and did not regain it in the following months. Last year I wrote 50 posts, this year only 45. Not terrible, I know. But I had planned to write 60. So, not great either.

The Year’s Most Popular Posts

What content was most popular this year? Here are the year’s top 10 most visited posts. I’ve placed each post’s place on last year’s list in parentheses after the post title.

  1. 1916 Aetna Explosives Co. Explosion at Mt. Union, Pa.
  2. Lancaster County Deed Books Online (#8)
  3. Making a Deed Map from Old Metes and Bounds (#10)
  4. Surname Study: My Ahnentafel List
  5. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (#6)
  6. 5,000 Acres—Where Did It All Go? (#5)
  7. Huber Immigrants (#4)
  8. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (#3)
  9. How to Use the Online Lands Records at the PA State Archives (#2)
  10. Pennsylvania Genealogical Map (#1)

This year’s six most popular posts were also last year’s top six; number eight and nine appeared on the 2016 list, too. I was glad to see two new posts appear on the list this year. One—My Ahnentafel List—is basically my pedigree as I know it back as far as I can go. The other post, #10, was my attempt to research a memory that my paternal grandfather shared with me of his father.

However, like last year, not one of these posts were written in 2017. However, just out of the running at number eleven was Ethnicity Estimate Comparisons, a post about my ethnicity estimates at AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA as compared to my own estimate based on my pedigree. It has received 181 visits since it was posted in February. With the increasing popularity of DNA testing, maybe it will crack the top ten next year.

Top Ten Posts Written in 2017

If I only include those posts written this past year, what does the list look like? (# of visits in parentheses)

  1. How Are We Related? (May; 34)
  2. My Genetic Communities (Apr; 41)
  3. The Early Life of Rev. Frederick Wage (Jan; 43)
  4. Unexpected Discovery from AncestryDNA Match (May; 52)
  5. Henry Landis Jr. (1764-1824) (May; 53)
  6. Pennsylvania Deeds Online at FamilySearch (Jul; 66)
  7. Estimating Ethnicity Percentages (Jan; 82)
  8. Amazon Associates Link Builder Plugin (Jan; 116)
  9. 5 Reasons to Search Orphans Court Records (Jan; 120)
  10. Ethnicity Estimate Comparisons (Feb; 181)

Five—50%—of these posts reflect this year’s focus on my AncestryDNA results. I spent a great deal of time when I should have been writing chasing down connections to my DNA cousins and building out family trees. Much of this has been fairly random, simply trying to figure out how I’m related to the people on my match list.

However, now that I’ve got smart about it and focused on specific research objectives, I feel like I’m making some headway. I’ve been using these DNA results to identify and/or verify some of my ancestors. For instance, my work on Jacob and Catharina (Nuss?) Schneider. Using the DNA results in conjunction with my research is giving me more confidence in both.

So, What Now?

To a large extent, I’ve been struggling with a lack of motivation in my writing. I often feel that in order to be worthy of a blog post, I need to have a revelation to discuss or fully done research report to write up. Otherwise the idea just isn’t worthy enough.

But the majority of my most popular posts don’t bear this out. The most viewed post on my blog is about the Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map. It describes a tool that I’ve found useful in understanding settlement dates and changing jurisdictions while doing Pennsylvania genealogy. The top ten is made up of such posts. They detail a research tool or explain how I use an available resource.

Greater popularity is the result of topics that appeal to broader audiences. Since this is a personal research blog, counting total views is not necessarily the most appropriate metric of success. But it might be a good guide for how I write my posts.

Hopefully, this is a lesson I can take to heart in the coming year. My goal for the coming year is to simply share information that is helpful to my fellow family researchers and other genealogists—regardless of how complete or thorough it is.

Focusing on not just the what I know/learned but also on the how I know/learned it might help me to make my writing of more use to more people. And I think that’s a good goal to have.

2017 A Year in Reivew

2016: A Blog’s Year in Review

Once again it’s the last day of the year. Time to look back and reflect on the past year before looking ahead the the next.

Disappointed in my 2015 writing performance here on this blog, I made a goal to increase the number of posts I’d write for 2016. I did not set a specific goal, other than to write more than in 2015.

Looking Back

So, how did I do?

In 2015, I wrote a total of 17 posts. This year I wrote 50 posts, broken down by calendar month, as follows:

  • January: 7 posts (2015: 2)
  • February: 3 posts (2015: 0)
  • March: 4 posts (2015: 0)
  • April: 1 post (2015: 0)
  • May:  0 posts (2015: 3)
  • June: 4 posts (2015: 0)
  • July: 3 posts (2015: 0)
  • August: 5 posts (2015: 3)
  • September: 5 posts (2015: 2)
  • October: 5 posts (2015: 3)
  • November: 4 posts (2015: 2)
  • December: 9 posts (2015: 2)

That’s significant improvement—although there were a couple of months with little to no posts.  So, there’s room for improvement.

Did any of that content make the top ten favorite posts list for 2016? 1

  1. Making a Deed Map from Old Metes and Bounds (2015: #9)
  2. How to Use Pennsylvania Probate Records at FamilySearch (2015: n/a)
  3. Lancaster County Deed Books Online (2015: #5)
  4. Andreas Huber Origins: Trippstadt, Ellerstadt or Ittlingen? (2015: #6)
  5. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (2015: #8)
  6. 5,000 Acres—Where Did It All Go? (2015: #7)
  7. Huber Immigrants (2015: #4)
  8. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (2015: #3)
  9. How to Use Online Records at the Pennsylvania State Archives (2015:#2)
  10. Pennsylvania Genealogical Map (2015: #1)

Nope. It’s almost the same list as in 2014 and 2015.

What if I only include those posts written in 2016? Here are the top ten from this year only:

  1. Easy Footnotes (April)
  2. Does the Spelling of a Name Really Matter? (August)
  3. Pirated?! (August)
  4. A Beautiful Circle (August)
  5. Shaking Those Little Leaves (July)
  6. Lifestyles of Early Pennsylvania German Immigrants (August)
  7. It’s a Really Small World (July)
  8. Ancestral Birthplace Chart (March)
  9. Was Johann Adam Hacker a Redemptioner? (January)
  10. Ruth Olive Hocker (February)

Three posts about using Ancestry/AncestryDNA, a couple of quick posts, a post about a WordPress plugin, and an obituary for my grandmother. Only two of those posts were planned writing exercises, rather than spur of the moment—”this is what’s happening” type of posts.

Were there any signs that the content I wrote in 2016 related to topics of interest to other genealogists?

I got comments on ten posts out of 50—twenty percent. Not bad for post engagement. Eight posts were shared on social media by readers. Surprisingly, not the posts I would have expected.

Meeting Goals

I had four goals that I believed I needed to work on in order to improve my writing. They were: focus, plan, write, and share.

I wanted to focus on a subject or family line to write about. I picked two topics. My Huber research and using deed records in genealogy research.

I wrote two series about Hubers, granted not my ancestors, but part of my research nonetheless. I wrote only one article that meets my criteria for deed research—“Does the Spelling of a Name Really Matter?”. It was the 9th most viewed of my 2016 posts. And it did not focus only on using deed records.

I started out the year planning my editorial calendar in a Google spreadsheet from a list of topics I’d been keeping in Evernote. However, a number of those articles were crossed out when I didn’t write them. Only one was later incorporated in my post “Lifestyles of Early Pennsylvania German Immigrants” (#5 on the list of top 2016 posts).

I did, however, include more research articles, including three written as a series, made up of eight posts. 2 I wrote about Abraham Huber in a three-part series, John Weidman’s pedigree in a two-post series, and Georg and Anna Maria (Hooß) Huber in three posts. None of these were among the most viewed posts in 2016.

I also covered surprise finds from my Hacker-Hocker research and I wrote an obituary for my grandmother who passed away in February. None of which I’d planned.

So, I increased the number of posts I wrote and—with those series—included documentation of some of my research findings.

Just recently I started sharing more. I added a Facebook page for the site and I’ve been sharing posts there and to my Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest accounts regularly. Some of my posts have even been shared by others on social networking.

I also wanted to release another book—maybe two—in 2016. I got An Index to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Online Deeds, Books I-M written, formatted, edited and uploaded for production on Lulu and Amazon, but decided not to go forward when the Lancaster County Register of Deeds released their new online viewer for both deed books and deed book indices. No need for a book when there’s online access 24/7—especially when my earlier ebooks were pirated and distributed online for free—a real motivation killer, for sure.

I’ve been working on several other book projects, but since they’re more involved genealogical works, they’re taking longer. The research is slow going.

All in all, I have to say that although I slacked off here and there, I did fairly well in 2016. There’s room for improvement, of course, but measured against my goals—a good job. Go, me! 😉

How was your 2016?

Looking Forward

My goals for 2017 are not so different than my goals for this year. I’d like to increase the number of posts I write and to share more.

But I’m going to be realistic. There’s no way I’m going to pump out fully fleshed out research reports weekly—or even monthly. It’s just not going to happen. Hello, life!

So, I think I’ve finally convinced myself that there’s nothing wrong with posting an individual record—how I found it, what it includes, how it fits into a person’s life story—rather than waiting until I can write the full story. I’m going to share more bits and pieces. Incomplete research. Ideas I’m working on. I was thinking social media would be the venue for that, but I think it’s better to use my website as the hub and share it from there.

So, a long post to show you where I’m at. Maybe—if I’m feeling really ambitious—I might tackle the idea of regular emails to site subscribers to keep them up-to-date. I guess we’ll just have to see what 2017 brings.

2015: The Year In Review

At this time of year, it’s become a tradition to look back at the highlights from the previous year. You see this a lot with television news programs… and online with blogs. So, here goes.

Looking Back

This year has not been a terribly prolific year for blog posts. I’ve done a fair amount of writing. It just hasn’t been for the blog. I wrote a total of 17 posts, as follows:

  • January: 2 posts
  • May: 3 posts
  • August: 3 posts
  • September: 2 posts
  • October: 3 posts
  • November: 2 posts
  • December: 2 posts (including this one)

Rather pathetic actually.

Perhaps that’s why the top ten viewed pages were all written in prior years and most have appeared on previous years’ top ten lists.1

  1. Jacob Hoover (ca 1746-1800) (#5 in 2014)
  2. Making a Deed Map from Old Metes and Bounds
  3. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (#9 in 2014)
  4. 5,000 Acres—Where Did It All Go?
  5. Andreas Huber Origins: Trippstadt, Ellerstadt, or Ittlingen? (#8 in 2014)
  6. Lancaster County Deed Books Online (#4 in 2014)
  7. Huber Immigrants (#6 in 2014)
  8. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (#7 in 2014)
  9. How to Use the Online Land Records at the PA State Archives (#3 in 2014)
  10. Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map (#2 in 2014)

Although I didn’t write much this year, I did improve over last year on the number of views and unique visitors—24,000+ and 11,000+, respectively. I hope that’s because more people are finding the information I’ve posted useful and relevant.

Looking Forward

However, I would like my total number of posts to go up in 2016!

Since I tend to write when I’ve research to report—or to organize said research into coherent conclusions—I’ve either not been terribly successful, or perhaps not so active with my family research.

I know I’ve been actively researching. But I’m the first to admit it’s been all over the place—work on my family lines, work for several writing projects, and just data collection for specific surnames. None of it significant enough to compile into a compelling article.

So, to accomplish my first goal of writing more, I’ve got to set another goal. To be more organized and targeted in my research.

This one I find difficult to do. Online access to records has spoiled me. I love that feeling of success when you find what you’re looking for. And the online data is so easily accessible it’s easy to get distracted as new questions come up—whether they pertain to the original research question or not.

But once you’ve tapped all the available online sources, it’s all too easy to get distracted or simply turn to another research question and start the process all over—never fully finishing the research on the first topic because you haven’t completed a “reasonably exhaustive” search by including offline records. Oy!

So, my goals for 2016—in order for everything else to fall in line—must be as follows:

  1. Focus – Pick a project, topic, or family line and focus on it.
  2. Plan – Decide on a research plan and stick to it. Plan out posts on the calendar; don’t wait for inspiration to strike.
  3. Write – Compile and organize the research results, then write them up. Write up what I already know for the people/topics in the calendar; feed this into the research plan to fill in the gaps.
  4. Share – And lastly, share what I’ve written. Maybe a reader will have more information or suggestions on where to look next.

Now to sit down and decide where I’m going to focus for 2016 and start planning.

How was your 2015?

2014 in Review

On this last day of 2014, it’s time to take a look back. I don’t have specific goals for this website—other than to provide access to my family research. So, how did I do?

In 2014, I wrote 63 new posts with most posts being written in January—April and July—September. May, June and December were my worst months. Here is how the year stacked up:

  • January — 10 posts
  • February — 7 posts
  • March — 4 posts
  • April — 4 posts
  • May — 1 post
  • June — 2 posts
  • July — 13 posts
  • August — 9 posts
  • September —6 posts
  • October — 2 posts
  • November — 3 posts
  • December — 2 posts (including this one)

My longest writing streak? 2 days in a row.

I started the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge at the beginning of last year. The goal was to write a post about an ancestor each week. Although I started off well, my participation was rather hit or miss. I posted my last contribution at the beginning of September.

All told, I only wrote 22 posts for the challenge, less than 50% of the goal. Because I preferred to write about something new that I’d learned about each ancestor, it wound up being too time consuming. If I had just written about what I already knew, maybe I would have been more consistent. Sigh. I much prefer the hunt for new information and the reward of finding it over documenting it.

Although I didn’t write very often. I did receive more than 19,000 page views. All things considered that’s not too shabby for this little blog. Here are the ten most viewed pages of 2014:

  1. Andreas Huber (1723—1784) (#8 in 2013)
  2. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (#9 in 2013)
  3. Andreas Huber Origins: Trippstadt, Ellerstadt, or Ittlingen? (#5 in 2013)
  4. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (#4 in 2013)
  5. Huber Immigrants (#7 in 2013)
  6. Jacob Hoover (ca 1746—1800) (#6 in 2014)
  7. Lancaster County Deed Books Online
  8. How to Use Online Land Records at the PA State Archives (#3 in 2013)
  9. Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map (#2 in 2013)
  10. Home Page/Archives (#1 in 2013)

Once again, most of these pages made the list in 2012 and 2013. It’s not surprising that the general information posts were popular. Nor is it a shock that the Huber family posts made this list—since the Hoover surname is one of my most researched!

I believe that more of those visitors who viewed the Andreas and Jacob Huber posts were more than likely looking for information on the ancestor of President Herbert Hoover. However, they do provide valuable information for the descendants of Andrew Hoover of Fayette County, Pennsylvania—who is frequently confused with the president’s immigrant ancestor. Although I’ve determined that I’m not a descendant, I’m glad I did the research and shared the results.

So, that’s a look at my blogging for 2014. What did your year look like?

Best of 2013

Now that 2013 is almost over, it’s time to look back and reflect on the year past. Here’s a list of the top 10 most viewed posts for this year.

  1. 5,000 Acres—Where Did It All Go? with 165 views (#7 in 2012)
  2. Pennsylvania Township Warrantee Maps with 177 views (#4 in 2012)
  3. Andreas Huber (1723—1784) with 180 views
  4. Huber Immigrants with 198 views (#5 in 2012)
  5. Jacob Hoover (ca 1746—1800) with 212 views
  6. Andreas Huber Origins: Trippstadt, Ellerstadt, or Ittlingen? with 241 views (#8 in 2012)
  7. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online with 250 views
  8. How to Use the Online Land Records at the PA State Archives with 396 views (#3 in 2012)
  9. Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map with 1,919 views (#1 in 2012)
  10. Home page / Archives with 3,964 views (#2 in 2012)

Apparently, I was not particularly helpful or interesting this year as all of these pages were written in prior years—except perhaps whatever people were looking at on the home page! Most of theses posts—with the exception of the pages on Andreas and Jacob Huber—were fairly general, either providing information on how to use an online resource, directing readers to a resource, or providing information on multiple surnames. That two pages on specific people made the list was somewhat surprising—until I realized that although neither was related to President Hoover, both names were used in his family.

So, did you have a favorite post in 2013? What was it about and where was it posted? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Top 10 Posts of 2012

I like to take a look at my website stats to see what posts & pages get viewed. Partly due to curiosity, but it’s also useful when I need inspiration. I’m sharing with you as a kind of year in review.

Here’s a list of the top ten most viewed posts on my site for 2012.

  1. Lancaster County Deed Books Online with 216 page views and 144 unique Views
  2. George Hoover (ca 1735/40-1813) with 235 page views & 203 unique views (#5 in 2011)
  3. Andreas Huber Origins: Trippstadt, Ellerstadt, or Ittlingen? with 239 page views and 210 unique views (#7 in 2011)
  4. 5,000 Acres—Where Did It All Go? with 240 page views and 122 unique views
  5. Pennsylvania Marriages, 1885-1950 with 249 page views and 161 unique views
  6. Huber Immigrants with 271 page views and 230 unique views (#6 in 2011)
  7. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps with 351 page views and 253 unique views (#3 in 2011)
  8. How to Use the Online Land Records at the PA State Archives with 443 page views and 284 unique views
  9. Home page with 1,086 page views and 691 unique views (#1 in 2011)
  10. Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map with 1,665 page views and 741 unique views (#2 in 2011)

It’s an interesting mix of my research, how-tos and Pennsylvania genealogy resources, and older and newer posts. Do you have a favorite  or most useful post? If you have a blog, what were your top 10 most viewed posts in 2012?