I’m a compulsive volunteerer and joiner-inner so when I saw that quite a few of my Genimates were participating in the Blogging from A-Z Challenge I joined up at the last minute. I therefore had no time to prepare and think about what I had let myself in for so I made some newbie mistakes.
Yes, I will do it again but I won’t repeat the mistakes I made this year. I liked my theme but it also caused me problems as each of my posts required me to devote between 1-4 hours to research and writing up. As I was concerned about some unforeseen event occurring that would prevent me completing the challenge I put a lot of pressure on myself to get ahead of the challenge calendar. When I completed all the posts about ten days ahead of time there was an enormous sense of relief.
My topic was rather dull and dry and not of great appeal to a general audience. Next time I will probably choose one of my other blogs and a topic that will allow my voice and personalty to come through in the posts. I’ll also choose a topic that will allow me to share some of the thousands of photos I have taken on my travels. As I was not aiming for immediate gratification this wasn’t a huge problem. I was wanting to get my stories out into the blogisphere where they can act as Cousin Bait for folk who in the future may be searching for their Curry ancestors in Australia. The challenge gave me the impetus to write some of those stories.
I chose my CurryAus blog for the challenge as it is the least known of my blogs and I thought it would benefit from some extra exposure. Although it did not have a huge number of visitors I was quite pleased that the challenge brought me new genealogy contacts in Australia and further afield. I had a few visitors who were disappointed to find that it wasn’t a food blog about Curry cooking downunder.
As my interest is genealogy and family history I enjoyed finding new geneablogs to follow. This would be made easier if the organisers could create a category for genealogy/family history blogs. As it is hard to identify a blog’s content from its title it took me until nearly the end of the challenge to find some of these blogs (and I’m sure I missed others).
I loved reading the posts from other bloggers on all manner of topics but found that I just didn’t have time to comment on as many blogs as I would have wished. It was also interesting to find that one of my genealogy contacts was also a passionate blogger, it took the challenge to let me know about her blogging activity.
As a result of the challenge, I have made some new contacts, learnt lots from the posts of Genimates , given my Surname Study some exposure, had many trips down memory lane, encouraged a fellow blogger to research her family history and seen some awful and some awesome blogging.
Roll on April 2017…. I’ll be prepared next time.
There must be a lot of Currys out there because I didn’t find anyone who looked like my husband’s ancestors on your blog. It was interesting reading about them, however and a great introduction to Trove. I have a friend who hardly slept two nights ago as she has started using Trove to research her family. Alas I have to put family research on hold as I am preparing for our visit to North America. Packing, currency, sims for phones, lists, places to see, reviews to read – that is what I’ll be doing for the next week. USA and Canada here I come!
I enjoyed your reflections. Like you I’m thinking about topics for next time. Cheers.
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I hope you find time to blog between now and the nexe challenge Linda.
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It is a bit full-on and I admit I learned after the first time that being pre-scheduled is critical. I too met new people and that getting your story, and blog, out there may be one’s goal. Happy planning for next year. When will they be ready to go?
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I’ve done five drafts and am on the lookout for ideas for the rest.
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I’m impressed!!
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I keep saying I’m going to pre-schedule my posts but I never seem to be able to get more than a day or 2 ahead and then even that disappears.
Finding Eliza
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I’m starting already Kristin. Don’t want to repeat this year’s stress.
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I was like you. I joined in at the last minute and didn’t pre-plan except to create a paper calendar of April and jot down possible ancestors. I, too, was finding that I would spend 1-3 hours writing and researching. Some of my posts got pretty long. Later, I decided to write about one thing in their life. I also changed the people I wrote about so I’d be sure to have a photo to accompany the blog. This was also necessary because the last two weeks of the challenge I was in Salt Lake City researching at the Family History Library. I wanted to research, not write blog posts. I haven’t decided whether to do this again. I’d have to figure out how to handle those odd letters of Q, X, and Z next time. I barely squeaked by. I popped by your blog a few times and should have commented. I’m so bad about that. Sorry.
http://mytrailsintothepast.blogspot.com/
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Lisa, Thanks for stopping by.I feel bad about all the comments I didn’t make. We can only do what we can. I hope to see you next year!!!
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Congratulations on completing the challenge. I also *promise* to get started earlier next year! And maybe enter an additional blog. Luck to us all! 🙂
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Yes, it doens’t take long for the memory of the stress to fade – a bit like childbirth really.
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I can’t think of a theme I’m happy with so I have not started yet. Thought it was a most successful way to add lots of individuals to blog for more cousin bait.
I suggested a family history/ genealogy category in the survey.
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I’m sure you’.. come up with something beaut , Fran. See you in 2017!
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Hi Jill…your post made me giggle several times. Particularly the disappointed folk looking for curry recipes…tee hee. Yes, as it was my first challenge too I felt “slammed” by how much work there was to do but I learned heaps in the process so that’s gotta be a good thing. Not sure if I’ll be organised enough to pre-write some for next year….maaaaybbbeee….
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And I learnt so much from your posts, Alex. I don’t know how you managed work and the challenge.
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well everything is a learning in some way or other.. so this experience also made u learn so many things.. wish to see you next year too..
http://serendipityofdreams.blogspot.in/2016/05/reflections-2016.html
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Thanks for stopping by. I’ll look out for you in 2017.
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