Top 10 Posts of 2015

Yes, it's that time of the year when everyone looks back, and I'm doing my retrospective look at the past year's posts to see what people found the most interesting and comment-worthy.  Unlike last year, when the posts ranged over a few topics, this year it's much more clear-cut.  Of my top ten most-viewed posts, two were about online newspapers and eight were reviews of Who Do You Think You Are?  Even the next two in popularity, which were very close behind and tied for the same number of views, were newspapers and WDYTYA.  That almost sounds like a mandate!  So, counting down from #12 to the top, we have:

11.  Who Do You Think You Are? - J. K. Rowling

11.  Big Trouble with Newspaper Digitization (which was second for the number of shares)

10.  Who Do You Think You Are? - America Ferrera

9.  Who Do You Think You Are? - Tony Goldwyn

8.  Who Do You Think You Are? - Sean Hayes

7.  Who Do You Think You Are? - Ginnifer Goodwin

6.  Who Do You Think You Are? - Bill Paxton

5.  Who Do You Think You Are? - Julie Chen

4.  New links added to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page

3.  Who Do You Think You Are? - Josh Groban

1.  Who Do You Think You Are? - Angie Harmon

1.  New links added to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page

You'll note that two posts tied for #1 also.  They had the same number of views, but newspapers came out on top because of more shares.

Two seasons of Who Do You Think You Are? aired during 2015:  TLC's season 3 had eight episodes and season 4 had five, for a total of thirteen, nine of which made it into my Top 12.  I was surprised Angie Harmon was the most popular episode for views.  I have no idea whether that was occasioned by interest in the woman or the episode itself.

I mentioned above that "Big Trouble with Newspaper Digitization" came in second for shares.  It turns out the top position in that also had two posts tied:  "Slaves Listed in 1839 Virginia Will", and "Wedding Wednesday", which was about my parents' 1961 wedding.

None of the most-viewed posts was in the list of most-commented on, where this time I had a three-way tie:  my 4th blogiversary, my impressions of the joint FGS/RootsTech conference, and the lovely compliment I received from a family member of one of the WDYTYA celebrities.

I also checked posts from earlier years for most shared and most viewed overall.  The 2014 post about Dick Eastman not posting a comment of mine that he apparently didn't like is still tops in the number of shares.  But whereas last year Lionel Ritchie's appearance on Who Do You Think You Are? was the most viewed, the new leader, now almost 30% higher than Ritchie, is my post about gaining citizenship through descent.  That post also by far has more comments than any other during the past five years.  I think that's what's called a "perennial."