Celebrating My 15th Blogiversary

One hot summer night in 2008, I decided to begin blogging about my genealogy adventures. I had been tracing my family's roots for a decade by then. 

What to name my new blog? I remember trying one or two names, but they were already in use by others using the Blogger platform. Then I typed in Climbing My Family Tree and was pleasantly surprised to discover no one else had that blog name (on Blogger). 

Early posts were about questions I was trying to answer and some of the clues I was beginning to find. Soon I was posting about family history artifacts, useful resources, research trips, conference sessions and exhibit halls, mystery photos, cemetery visits, plus lots of unexpected detours and surprise discoveries. 

Best of all, my blog has been terrific cousin bait, bringing me together with some wonderful relatives I didn't even know I had. Whether close or distant, cousins who have gotten in touch have all added to my knowledge of ancestors and our family tree, for which I am grateful.

The WayBack Machine began archiving my blog in the fall of 2011. At that point, I had three badges on my blog plus a "Blogging for Ancestors" widget that used to be a loose connection between genealogy blogs, as shown here.  

By now I've written more than 1700 blog posts about my ancestors and my husband's ancestors. These have served as an ongoing "first draft of family history" as I create projects to preserve my family's past for the sake of future generations. More posts to come as I embark on my Sweet Sixteenth year of blogging. 

With the social media world still in flux due to changes on X/Twitter and other sites, I plan to continue blogging as a way to share family history adventures in my own words, in my own time. Thank you for reading!