Last week Barbara Poole at Life from the Roots invited her readers to tell her their own Top Ten favorite posts during 2010 and add them to the comments section of her blog. She compiled the submissions of 20 bloggers in her post Your Top Ten -- Not My Top Ten.
As I was choosing my favorites (which I will highlight in the next post) I realized that only one was a "typical" genealogy post (father named, son named, etc.) and the rest were either biographical sketches incorporating aspects of social history, or personal memories of ancestors - parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents; and a lone one was about an "adopted son." My purpose in writing the posts was to record what I knew and to bring to life in some small way the people who were the subjects of the posts.
Reviewing all of the year's posts was a good exercise to help me evaluate what I've doing with this blog and reevaluate what I should continue and what I should change in the future. One of the purposes of my posts is to record memories and share photographs of people I've known who are my daughters' and my ancestors; another is to record findings about ancestors, sometimes including the search process; and another is to share and transcribe documents about ancestors. As I go along I sometimes come across bits and pieces that don't seem to fit into any of those categories and they end up with the label "musings," "books and quotes," etc.
Much of what I've posted this year has been research that I've completed in the past four years rather than new research. It's hard to know whether to post my older findings (about the most recent - and easiest to find - ancestors) so that family members have a basis for the newer findings or whether to post the newest information (about earlier ancestors) and let them figure out who's who. (If any family members read this and have an opinion, please let me know.)
I think most of the posts this year fit into one of my purposes but not all. I hope I can stay closer to my purposes in 2011.
The next post will highlight my personal favorite posts from 2010.
"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers...." Malachi 4:6
Nancy, thank you for the mention of my recent post. I'm glad you read the favorites of the bloggers. It sure is a good way to see what people write about and for you to "evaluate what you've been doing." If you like, I can add your favorites to my site. Just send them to the comment section. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Barbara. I added them last week, I think.
ReplyDeleteNancy, yes you did. Thanks for your memory!
ReplyDelete