Year In Review : How Did You Find Me?

Taking another look-back at the stats on this blog for the past month and the year (or at least since Blogger added Stats) has shown some interesting developments.

As I mentioned in my last look at the stats on this blog, I've been using Twitter to tweet about posts.  I also started using Feedburner that will read the RSS feed and tweet the updates.  Linking posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN has also driven traffic to the blog.

My top referring sites are Google, Find1Friend and Facebook.  I was not familiar with Find1Friend, apparently it aggregates all social media.

The most popular search terms this year include:

• blogger : self-explanatory

• forrest chew salamonia indiana : Forrest is a member of my Chew family.  I wish whoever searched for him would have contacted me.

• travis lemaster : who is looking for me?  an old girlfriend?

• mary prevost : I have no idea how they found my blog through these search terms.  There are no references to the Prevost surname here.

• lambertson and wilson families of new jersey and ohio : Yes!  These are my people.  Who are you?  Why didn't you contact me?

There is now a new most popular post, GeneaLeaks, which rose quickly to the top after being highlighted by Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings.  Thanks, Randy!  Clearly, being mentioned by a popular blogger will lead to page views.

Just in the past month, there have been three posts that have received a great deal of interest, quickly moving them up to the top of my popular posts.  Once again, I find that once a post makes it to the sidebar as a popular post, it continues to receive more 'clicks'.  

Besides the previously mentioned GeneaLeaks, other posts with recent popularity include Applying SWOT Analysis To Your Genealogy Research and Building My 2011 Research Template.  I will be interested in seeing how 2011 stats pan out.

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by and commented on my blog posts. May you all have a productive research year in 2011!

Family Recipe Friday: Black Walnut Fudge

Mom shared another family recipe, this one is from my LeMaster side:

Black Walnut Fudge

We decided to collect and crack black walnuts this year since they were so big. I only wish we could crack them open like the squirrels do.

Weldon remembers his dad, Ord, cracking black walnuts and his mom making fudge.  While this is not her recipe it is good and simple, especially when using freshly cracked nuts

    3 1/3 cups sugar                                               
    1 cup light corn syrup                                         
    1/2 cup butter                                                 
    9 ounces evaporated milk                                       
    1/2 cup black walnuts, chopped   
                              
Mix first four intredients in a 3-quart saucepan.   Cook over medium heat to 240 degrees (236 degress is soft ball stage).   Remove from heat and cool.   Beat until it loses its gloss, then add nuts and pour into a 9x13-inch buttered pan.   Note:  It may look glossy or taffy like consistency until it is fully cooled.


Family Recipe Friday – is an opportunity to share your family recipes with fellow bloggers and foodies alike. Whether it’s an old-fashioned recipe passed down through generations, a recipe uncovered through your family history research, or a discovered recipe that embraces your ancestral heritage share them on Family Recipe Friday. This series was suggested by Lynn Palermo of The Armchair Genealogist.

Buggies & Wagons: Follow-Up

As a follow-up to my previous post regarding Beals & Hinshaw: Buggies & Wagons, I contacted the Hinshaw Family Association and received this response:

Travis:

That Hinshaw who was apparently a partner with Nathan Thomas Beals was Amos S. Hinshaw (1839-1930), son of Stephen Hinshaw (and, although we don't know with certainty what his full middle name was, one could guess that it was probably Stephen): 

  http://www.rawbw.com/~hinshaw/cgi-bin/id?329 

Amos S. Hinshaw indeed did live in Westfield, and was a member of Westfield Monthly Meeting.  And he was shown in the 1900 census with occupation "carriage builder", and in 1910 as "mechanic, carriage shop".

As to his relationship to Nathan Thomas Beals:  inconsequential.  Westfield was a small town in 1893, and there was a tight and close Quaker community - Amos and Nathan might have come together in partnership for reasons other than any genealogical relationship.  However, probably coincidentally, Amos was 3rd cousin once removed to Solomon Hinshaw, who married Nathan's sister Elizabeth.

Regards,

Jan Hinshaw

The Hinshaw Family Association

http://www.rawbw.com/~hinshaw

P.S.: I hope you don't mind, but I liked the "Beals & Hinshaw" scan you referenced, so I copied the image and added it to Amos Hinshaw's page (credited to you of course).

Incidentally, I did perform a relationship search through my Rootsmagic database, and found that Nathan Thomas BEALS and Amos S. HINSHAW were indeed first cousins, once removed - through Charles and Hannah (PIGGOTT) DAVIS.