Thursday, October 19, 2006

6 Months of Blogging

The 6-month anniversary of this blog slipped past on the 15th without a notice by me - I must have been too busy rooting on the Chargers and recuperating from the CVGS "Discover Your Family History Day."

In 6 months, I have written something like 300 posts. Some were creative, some were truly important, some were very informative, some were touching, and some were pretty bad.

In the early days, it was called Randy's Musings (hence the URL name!). I posted about the Padres status, my favorite music, pictures of the family, and genealogy research.

In late June, I decided to concentrate on genealogy in this blog, and I renamed the blog Genea-Musings (it was a wandering thought captured while in the shower) - sort of a cross between heavy genealogy thoughts and light genealogy humor. I wrote about the other "stuff" on another blog, called Randy's Busy Life, but I rarely have time to post to it.

I recognized early on that I could not do complete genealogy news coverage (like Dick Eastman and Leland Meitzler), original humor (like Chris Dunham), or a pure research blog (like Steve Danko). The blog has ended up being a pot-pourri, without a strong focus on one subject.

I have always considered my audience to be, first and foremost, the members of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society, and researchers in the general genealogical community. Hence, I have tried to blog about:

1) Genealogy research tips - how-to articles, good web sites, free databases, and the like.

2) CVGS events - meetings, speakers, workshops, etc.

3) My own family research - ancestral biographies, research experiences, brick walls, etc.

4) Humor - funny or strange names, web sites, poems or prose, etc.

5) Book reviews - genealogy books, biographies or historical fiction.

6) Newspaper articles - selected solely based on personal interest!

If you have read the blog archives, you can see how the blog content has changed over time - I did have some previously written content which was quickly used up and is hiding now in the archives.

I devote at least one hour a day to finding content or creating it to feed the blog monster, unless I'm outtatown visiting the grandchildren or having fun with my wife, or both!

There is a list of about 20 genealogy blogs that I visit every night, and a longer list that I visit occasionally. I enjoy each one I read, admire most of the posts, and celebrate their successes. I like to comment when I have the time and something useful or funny to say.

My statistics show that an average of 60 visitors drop by each day, with about 25 being return visits. I do wish that there were more comments - we genealogists seem to read and move on, rather than linger and comment. Perhaps that is due to the content. However, Dick Eastman, with many more readers than I, has few comments also.

Thank you all for reading this long, and I hope you will continue to read Genea-Musings regularly.

3 comments:

Chris said...

Congratulations, Randy! The attrition rate for bloggers is high over the first six months, but you've managed to survive.

I wonder if you've yet experienced "blogger's guilt." This is that feeling you get when you haven't blogged for a day or two, and worry that you've disappointed your regular readers. I can't tell you how many Caribbean cruises I've cut short to get back to my computer and blog. (If you guessed "none," you're in the ballpark.)

Jasia said...

Congratulations on 6 months, Randy!

"The blog has ended up being a pot-pourri, without a strong focus on one subject." This is what I like best about your blog... it's not predictable. I don't know from one day to the next what you'll be writing about but I'm sure I'm going to like it and usually learn from it as well. I think it's best not to try to do what someone else is doing but to find your own voice. You've done that and I applaud you.

Joe said...

Blogger's guilt? What? My goal is to post at least once a month. That way the archives look full :)

Congratulations, Randy.

I think I need to head over to a cemetery. Maybe I'll find something to blog about...