BLOGIVERSARY: NOW WE ARE EIGHT

Well, another year has come and gone, and here I am at the eighth anniversary of this blog.
As is my yearly tradition, here is the story of how it all began:

"Yes, now it can be told. My first geneablog was a failure. I was new
to this whole idea and started out enthusiastically and wrote
five posts within a few days for my blog which I'd named
West of New England. But when I went to add a new post a day
or so later, I discovered I couldn't recall the password for the blog.
After about a half an hour I gave up and just recreated the blog.
I'd saved what I'd written so I created a new blogger account
and started a new geneablog, West in New England. And that's why
the first five posts are all dated Jan 23,2007.

And that's also how I learned the first rule of blogging, "Don't forget
your password!" 

And I should mention that I was inspired to start my own blog by seeing the blogs
written by Randy Seaver, Chris Dunham, and Tim Abbott, who as it turns out, are
all my cousins. I found their blogs while googling the surnames of my ancestors,
and it gave me the idea that writing a blog might help me find more relatives, especially
those related to me through my Mom's father. Eventually it did.

Some states: I have now had 365, 779 pageviews and I've written 1682 posts. I have 293
followers, still slowly inching towards 300.

The all time top five pages viewed remain the same through the first three but the last
two are newcomers:

THE FIFTH ANNUAL GREAT GENEALOGY POETRY CHALLENGE POSTS  2471 pageviews

MEMORIES OF MALDEN                                                                                    938 pageviews

THE FOURTH AMERICAN CIVIL WAR BLOGPOST CHALLENGE ROUNDUP 757 pageviews

ANCESTRY.COM, 'NEW SEARCH' AND THE C.H.O.P. PRINCIPLE.                  618 pageviews

THE BOOK OF ME, WRITTEN BY YOU 3: THE SKIN I'M IN.                             584 pageviews

One thing I've noticed is that many of the other geneablogs listed under the Links
heading are no longer active.  I've been lucky, I guess. I still enjoy finding things out
about my ancestors and sharing them here. I suppose the day may come when it's
no longer fun, but hopefully that won't be for a long time yet.

Finally, thanks to you folks who read what I write and encourage me by leaving comments!