Having taken part in the Guild Blog Challenge that ran over the last five months of 2024, I thought it might be a good idea to review how things went, particularly picking up on some of the issues that I mentioned in my first post for the Challenge.1
Frequency of posts
The aim was to produce at least one blog post a month, based on topics suggested by Melody McKay Burton, who set up the Challenge for us, following requests at a Guild Seminar. I didn't succeed in sticking to the timescale - my first post was early, my second and fifth were on time (just!), but the third and fourth were both late. However, I did at least manage to write five posts. So that's a small success, because I didn't let the failure to post during October discourage me from continuing.
Correspondents
I'd expressed concern about the 'trade-off' in time, between communicating with others about the study as opposed to just getting on with the research, and about how difficult it can be to get the balance right. The one comment I did receive on the blog, which aided my own understanding of an issue, was much appreciated. But, since I only notified the Challenge Group about my posts, I managed to avoid the issue of 'too much communication,' which might have arisen if I had publicised the posts more widely.
So this balance is still an issue I need to be mindful of in the future (especially since I did find myself getting a bit sidetracked trying to help a researcher who contacted me in November, regarding Parry ancestors that emigrated to the United States, potentially from North Wales - there are a lot of Parrys in North Wales!)
Content and Prompts
Pretty much in line with what I'd written before, I found that having the prompts for each month was useful in ensuring I attempted to write something - but some of the prompts were also almost 'stumbling blocks'. "Similarities and Differences" was one such topic, because I didn't think I knew enough about any particular individuals, or families, in the study, in order to do the detailed analysis that I considered would best fit the topic. This accounted for why October's post was so late, and why the post ended up as the wider overview of the "Parry vs Perry" surname.
How to overcome that? Perhaps the key, at least for me, is to separate out the 'challenge' from the 'prompts'. Having a challenge is an incentive - so my pact with myself, for the future, is that I will continue to try to write at least one post each month. But, in order to keep the usefulness of prompts, without the possibility of stumbling blocks, I am going to give myself a choice - I am going to create a list of topics (probably based on those of past Guild challenges, and other genealogy blog series, such as the "52 ancestors" 2) so that I have a range of topics to choose from each time, with the proviso that I can't write about the same topic twice.
Organisation
I don't think the Challenge made any difference to this - it merely highlighted the fact that I'm still not as organised as I need to be, to make the study as good as it could be!
Final thoughts - Motivation
Well, I definitely feel more motivated to keep on posting, so that's progress!
The Challenge didn't just provide an incentive to get blogging again, but it also reminded me of how much I enjoy researching the PARRYs, and passing on the results of that research. So it has provided an answer to the question I posed - "Why am I writing this blog?"
It might seem strange to say that one conclusion from the Challenge is that I am going to be a bit more "selfish". But, if research into family history, and the PARRY One-Name Study, really are the priorities for me that I want them to be, because I enjoy them, then that should be reflected in the time I put into them.
So, rather than allowing myself to get involved with things that are often to achieve other people's (or organisation's) priorities, I'm going to aim to follow the advice of a well-known genealogist - "life is short – do genealogy first!"3
(And, finally, thank you to Melody for organising the Challenge - you doing so has made a difference!)
Notes and References
1. The first post of the Challenge: https://parry-one-name-study.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-challenge-of-blogging-guild.html
2. Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks": This is a link to sign up for the current series
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-new/ but many of the topics from previous years can easily be found by searching online.
3. "Life is short – do genealogy first!": Geoff Rasmussen of Legacy Family Tree Webinars,
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