Most Viewed Blog Posts of 2023

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 Most Viewed Blog Posts 2023



     There was an ad for a metal detector that ran on TV for years. A man spoke earnestly into the camera. “My wife said I needed a healthy hobby.” There was something about it that always made one of my sons and I laugh. It became part of a repertoire between us. Everyone needs a healthy hobby!

      I have no shortage of hobbies or ways to spend my free time, and of course one of those ways is family history research. It seems there are two extremes and no middle ground in this area: either you are interested or you’d rather hear the U.S. Tax Code read aloud. If you are interested, you don’t want stories to get lost – or lost again, as the case may be. Everything I’ve written about in my blog this year was completely unknown to my family. Researching family history, we also learn a lot about history and places, and I chose to also write about the times and places and pop culture surrounding this set of ancestors.

     My most-viewed posts sometimes surprised me. There are a few another son mentioned on Reddit, so of course viewings would spike for those posts, and that was no surprise. But others, I wondered, why this one? Why not this one? There are some, like “How To Write the Perfect Victorian Obituary” that I thought would be of greater interest. 

     Which one was my favorite?  Two, “Even the Sun Is Not Without Spots: Murder in Rising Sun,” and “The Great McKanlass,” took so much time to research and sift through all the material. I became obsessed until I was done! If I had to pick only one favorite, though, it is “When My Great-Grandfather Was An Outlaw.” My great-grandfather, Clyde died long before I was born, but he was a real person to me as both my dad and my grandmother spoke fondly of him. Uncovering his hidden past, one neither of them knew about, was my biggest family history surprise. 

     From a family historian’s perspective, I’m fortunate that Clyde committed a crime in Indian Territory rather than anywhere else in the country, because that is why so many details were preserved in newspapers. He wouldn't have been tried in federal court otherwise. He wouldn’t have been taken across the country to a penitentiary in New York otherwise. He wouldn’t have been on a train with a famed outlaw who had captured national attention otherwise. Because of all those circumstances, I had details like what he had for breakfast on different days and what the train looked like. 

     Here are the most viewed blog posts of 2023:


  1. When My Great-Grandfather Was An Outlaw (December 2022)

  2. The Miracle of Connections and Wendy (February)

  3. The Neighbor's Brain Surgery (March)

  4. Going to Coffeyville: The Barbour Brothers Second Chance (April)

  5. The Tragedies of John Dilling Harkins (May)

  6. Wedding Gift Must-Haves of the 1870s and ‘80s (June)

  7. Chicago's Fisher’s Building (July)

  8. The Great McKanlass (August)

  9. Even the Sun Is Not Without Spots: Murder in Rising Sun (September)

  10. Family and the Populist Party (December 2023)

  11. When Pin the Tail on the Donkey was an Adult Party Craze (June)


     True, this is eleven and not ten. I didn’t want to leave the runner-up, the donkey game, off. It made me laugh, imagining adults playing this game and feeling very trendy.

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