“Inspiring notes from Roots and Recall’s users.”
Those of us who work on R&R do so with little notice of the number of individuals using the website, but we couldn’t help recently notice the number of increased communications. Two of these have been rather exciting to interact with. The first came from a young man researching the exodus of a large group of former slaves from York County, S.C. to settle in Liberia. This was not news; we have been involved in helping provide links and resources on the subject for decades. One excellent book with which we assisted in the 1980s compared the architectural
likeness of homes in the York County region to those in Liberia. And local historian, Jerry West, often wrote on the subject. What was nice to hear from the current researcher was his strong acknowledgement and endorsement of Roots and Recall’s contributions to his research and his desire that Mr. West be thanked for his part. R&R sites worth visiting are listed, (click on each to be directed to the corresponding pages.)
Another researcher, with whom we have now had numerous conversations, is also using Roots and Recall to do primary research on one of her ancestral homes in Chester County, S.C. We have provided her with numerous documents and images, and she professes to have a great amount of data on the family, which she plans to also share with Roots and Recall. Her research on this one house potentially may impact a number of users who are connected to this very old Chester family. We hope to share her new data in the very near future. Her comments and enthusiasm for Roots and Recall has been highly appreciated.
These are two examples of the many communications we are having with users. Though this is nothing new, when we did take time to look at the website and its usage, and we found three interesting updates:
- Users were staying on the website twice as long today as they did four months ago
- Users are looking at twice as many pages as they did, and
- More than 15,000 pages are being accessed monthly
This tells us that Roots and Recall has found an audience, currently ranked at #153,997 of some 81,00,00 websites in the USA. Individuals using R&R are truly interested in local history and preservation across the region – do take time to share the news! To have seen the website expand to this level of use is truly amazing, and all of us who volunteer to build its pages, digitize collections, and operate the site are warmed by the volume of usage and continued sharing of resources from across the nation.
From the Porch – Blog @ RootsandRecall.com – 11.10.16