I always look forward to Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. This week our mission is to visit the Wayback Machine, searching for screen shots of our own blogs. It’s never occurred to me to do this, I guess because Empty Branches is only 19 months old. However, I accepted the challenge and this is what I found.

Empty Branches was created in January 2014, but the Wayback Machine first found the site on 17 May 2014.

Because my blog is so new, I haven’t changed themes or background colors, but I have added to the toolbar to the right of the green title “Empty Branches on the Family Tree.” I had just begun to add in links to resources online.

The Wayback Machine didn’t return until five months later, on 29 September 2014.

The changes are subtle and can only be seen in the toolbar, as category names have been revised from favorite blogs, websites and educational links to “Blogs I Follow” and “Favorite Sites.”

The Wayback Machine looked like it was becoming a regular visitor for the rest of 2014, with monthly shots taken:

September – December 2014

It was a bit disappointing to move into 2015 and find that no visits were made again until 6 April 2015.

The toolbar has again been updated with the “Research Toolbox” now on the far right. One thing that annoyed me for months can be seen in the bottom right corner of this screen shot. It’s the “ghostly” image of the Feedly icon, not the real link. It took me a long time to figure out how to get rid of it, but the next time the Wayback Machine visits, it won’t be there.

I’m not sure why, but on 19 June, not one, but four, snapshots were taken. I learned something here. The circle on that date is larger than the others, reflecting the number of shots that were taken:

Four Visits in One Day!

I’m a little disappointed that the most recent Wayback Machine visit was on 19 August because it doesn’t reflect all the updates I’ve made to the toolbar.

However, it is evident that I’ve made updates in the interim since June. I am going to have to check the Wayback Machine for a while to see when it captures the latest additions to my blog.

Thanks, as always, Randy for an imaginative challenge.