April 2016's A-Z Challenge was a first for the Murch Blog. More than just one first: the Murch Blog did not even exist before the Challenge! I realised that it was all very well gathering piles of names and records about Murches in times-gone-by. I needed to expand the horizons of the Murch Surname Study.
I had never quite been able to grasp the concept of telling stories about my ancestors. For me, the raw data was the most important thing. Stories and anecdotes were very nice if you happened to come across them, but they weren't to be made a priority. In fact, I entered the Murch Blog into the A-Z Challenge with the vague idea that I would just put names and dates down in each blog post. But each individual I chose to write about made me want to write more about them, to identify each ordinary name and turn it into an extraordinary person. Because to me, being a secretary in a time when girls were supposed to stay at home until they got married - that's extraordinary. Being written about in the local paper as being 'trustworthy and faithful' - that's extraordinary.
OK, so the blog didn't garner many views. But I didn't expect that from this blog. I had in my mind the picture of some desperate genealogist somewhere who had almost given up on finding Hephzibah, or Queenie, or Robert, or Violet - and then they came across my blog.
Happy researching! I'm glad I could help.
© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved
You were dealing in a very niche topic so I guess that's one reason you might not have gotten many views. Always difficult to say. Never in vain is my philosophy as you created content and that might mean more in the future than it does for now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Reflections.
Arlee Bird
A to Z Challenge Co-host
Tossing It Out
I was thrilled to stumble across your surname study durung the challenge. Like your blog mine which was also a surname study didn't get many views but it gave me an opportunity to focus on my study and a vehicle to share stories of my Currys.Our posts weren't of much interest to the general public but will be pure gold in the future to anyone Googling their ancestors that we have highlighted.
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