You may be excused if this gets too geeky for you. On the other hand, you might discover a post among the top ten posts that you missed along the way, and this gives you a second chance to read it.
Ancestors in Aprons launched in April 2013. Since then, I have published 331 posts. In 2013, I wrote 31 posts telling stories about ancestors–some about more than one, and sometimes writing about one person more than once. In 2014 and 2015 I participated in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, which ensured that I would write about at least 104 ancestors and I actually sneaked in a few extra people.
Top Ten Posts on People: THE MOST POPULAR KIDS ON THE BLOCK in 2015
According to Google Analytics, based on the number of people who looked at each post this year, the Top Ten posts–10 most popular ancestors were:
- Joseph Kaser II, the Carpenter (February 2015) who crafted this lovely family heirloom.
Great Grandfather Joseph Kaser made this handkerchief chest.
- Harriette Anderson Kaser, When My Mother was Arrested (July 2015)
- AND Harriette the Teacher with School Photos (Sept 2015)
Harriette Andrson (on the right) coach of Killbuck Women’s Basketball Team 1928
- The Amazing Truman Bucklew (April 2015)
- One of my favorite stories, first posted in 2013, turns out to be a favorite with readers, too as they read about Doc William Stout and Hattie Morgan–The Doctor and the Girl on the Bridge, a Love Story. (August 2013)
- Ken’s cousins probably account for the popularity of his and their grandmother, Helen Stucky Bair Kohler facing a challenge. (July 2015)
Great-Grandma Helen Kohler with Mike, Kenneth Paul, and Brent, in Ohio, 1966
- Edward Kaser, unfortunate father of a black sheep in the Kaser family. (May 2015)
- A fun Thanksgiving read reviews more black sheep, as I wrote in 2014 about My Bassett Ancestors: Naughty Pilgrims. (November 2014)
- My quilting Aunt Irene Kaser Bucklew (married to the adventurous Truman Bucklew above) showed up in a lot of personals columns in the newspaper. (April 2015)
Irene Bucklew Wedding Ring pattern Baby Quilt 1939. Crib sized gift for me when I was born.
- Henry Butts wrote home from the Civil War (Dear Wif) and I published all the letters we have. The first one made the top ten list, but I think all of them deserve a look as they tell the story of the war from the point of view of an apolitical, farmer soldier who is patriotic, but more concerned about his family than national affairs. (January 2015)
A slightly different popularity list comes up if we look at who people searched for on the site. There we find Revolutionary War solider Jerusha Howe, Pilgrims William Bassett and Sarah Bassett and Peregrine White are the subjects of curiosity.
FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD
(Same criteria as above applied to the food pages–top ten posts about food.)
The first year of Ancestors turned out some lasting favorites.
- Perfect Pie Crust
(published in August 2013) continues to be the most popular post on all of Ancestors in Aprons. - Polenta- No, My Grandma Made Cornmeal Mush (October 2013)
-
Emily Dickinson Black Cake
Emily Dickinson Black Cake (December 2013)
And then you skipped right over 2014 and chose five recipes from 2015:
-
Apple Molasses Upside Down Cake
Apple-Molasses Upside Down Cake (February 2015)
- Swiss Bake (August 2015)
- Elisenlebkuchen (sublime German cookies) (December 2015)
- Amish Buttermilk Cookies (July 2015)
- Johnny Marzetti (May 2015)
Probably more significant in the food category is what foods people searched, because you tend to spend more than twenty minutes on the site when you search for a food story or a recipe. That is a really significant amount of time on a blog, where people average 20 seconds or so.
Searchers landed on:
- Food books
- Tomato soup
- Food grinder
- Amish Buttermilk Cookies
- Big Boy Barbecue Cookbook
- Cornbread
- Civil War Food
- Scalloped Corn
Interested in any of those topics? Just type it into the search box over on the right hand side of the page, and you’ll find stories and recipes.
So that is YOUR top ten posts. What about my favorites– those things that I thought deserved a few more readers? I would recommend:
The Civil War Letters of Henry Allen Butts, particularly the one where he loses his temper.
Love Letters and the Course of True Love, My parents love story. I love letters and love stories.
Avoiding the Storm, the story of many German Immigrants. I learned so much while writing this.
Ann Barbara Müller Lost Half Her Children. A sad, and sadly not untypical story.
Paul Kaser, Hydrologist. A family historian’s dream is to have a relative or ancestor who kept lots of records. My father left a fat personnel file that reveals how he went from day jobs to a career.
Where There’s a Will. There were three parts to this, each fascinating as I learned new things about people and how they lived through their last bequests.
Adam Limback loved Women, Married Five. Sure, it was common for men to remarry when their wives died, but Adam Limback Jr. carries it to extremes, wouldn’t you say?
As for food–I have so much fun researching old and foreign recipes that I wouldn’t dare start picking favorites.
What would YOU like to recommend? Or see more of in 2016??
