Home |
Minerd.com regularly is in the news and its content generates news. Telling the story of our website, our extended population of cousins, national family reunion and proprietary brand of research and storytelling are keys to reaching many thousands of cousins and the public at large and sharing this website's encyclopedic trove of family information. Our goal is to educate anyone about our mission to document the early lives of more than 1,900 of our collective forefathers and mothers, and the enormous, long-term collective impact that an average, ordinary American family can have on society. Here is a summary of news-making efforts since 1999. ~ 2023 ~ Aug. 4, 2023 - An scanned vintage image from the Minerd.com Archives -- the cover of McClure's Magazine, May 1903, and bearing the headline "Pittsburg: A City Ashamed," part of the Beaver Area Heritage Museum's award-winning 2022-2023 display -- is published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The image illustrates the article "Was U.S. Sen Matthew Quay from Beaver a saint or sinner?," authored by Karen Kadilak.
June 26, 2023
Jan. 19, 2022 - Minerd.com releases its 2022 Annual Review -- A Look Back, a Look Ahead and a Five-Year Plan" -- with founder Mark A. Miner writing:
Some statistics about 2022 performance. Page impressions were down to 77,170 -- total visitors were down to 29,551 -- new visitors were down to 28,606 -- and 20 new biographies were added. Facebook page membership grew from 722 to 791, and research added to the numbers of known military casualties, accidental work deaths in mining and metals, and casualties of water, fire/shock and vehicle accidents. Some 110 cousin deaths were recorded for the year, and total known counts of deaths since July 2000 grew to 4,577. More>>> ~ 2022 ~
Oct. 18, 2022 - A new, 35-minute video documentary Saint? or Sinner? The Complicated Legacy of Senator Matthew Stanley Quay of Beaver, PA, premieres at Beaver Station Cultural & Event Center , hosted by the founder of this website. The documentary features a number of vintage historical images from the Minerd.com Archives and is produced by the Beaver Area Heritage Foundation in association with Pacer Studios . The video highlights an exclusive interview with 100-year-old James A. Kehl, Ph.D., retired University of Pittsburgh professor and author of the definitive Quay biography Boss Rule in the Gilded Age. Sadly, Dr. Kehl died on Aug. 20, 2022, before the production could be completed. View the documentary on the Heritage Foundation's new YouTube Channel.
Feb. 27, 2022 - Minerd.com releases its 2021 Annual Review covering the year's highlights and performance of our award-winning website and private family Facebook page and blog, Page impressions were down to 98,963 -- total visitors were down to 33,774 -- new visitors were up to 30,879 and new biographies added up by 86. Facebook page membership grew from 646 to 722, and research added to the numbers of known military casualties, accidental work deaths in mining and metals, and casualties of water, fire/shock and vehicle accidents. Some 125 cousin deaths were recorded for the year, and total known counts of deaths since July 2000 grew to 3,803. In 2021, the website was updated nearly every single day, using a combination of proprietary research and a flood of amazing new material proactively shared by readers. ~ 2021 ~
December 2021 - The Historical & Genealogical Society of Somerset County (PA) -- also known as the Somerset Historical Center -- re-stocks its gift shop inventory of Well At This Time: The Civil War Diaries of Ephraim Miner, in both hardback and paperback formats, just in time for the Christmas holiday shopping season. Here, the Society's executive director Mark Ware displays the volumes in the Center's gift shop. In affiliation with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Society is the steward of the cultural heritage of Somerset County through its historical collections, educational programs and genealogical archives. More about the book>>>
May 22, 2021 - Two vintage Minerd.com Archives images are used by WFMZ-TV in Allentown, PA in a new installment of its ongoing "History's Headlines" series. Entitled "1938: On the Edge," the segment features Dr. Preston Albert Barba, professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, and an expert on German history, focusing on the looming clouds of World War II in America during the late 1930s. Dr. Barba was of the family of Jesse and Elizabeth (Baer) Fegley, made some 40 research trips to Germany during his impressive career, and was highlighted as the Minerd.com "Photo of the Month" in April 2019. View the clip>>>
Feb. 17, 2021 - Minerd.com releases its Annual Review 2020 covering the performance of the award-winning family website, private Facebook page and blog, a look back at highlights, what's new and performance during an otherwise difficult 2020, with the numbers generally up across a number of metrics. Page impressions were up to 105,449 -- total visitors were up to 35,959 -- and new visitors were up to 27,966 -- with total images up to 20,499 and total biographies up to 1,851. The year 2020 was to have been a much more pronounced celebration of Minerd.com’s 20th anniversary, and the Covid-19 lockdown slowed traditional research and reunion travel activity. But on the flip side, more time was freed up for online exploration and writing which greatly expanded Minerd.com’s already vast library of biographies, features and historic images. Website founder Mark Miner writes in the opening paragraphs: The worldwide coronavirus pandemic and lockdown – mixed with an embattled presidential election season, inflamed racial tensions and social media overload – shaped the quality of connection and respite in 2020 that Minerd.com and our Facebook page and blog are intended to be. These online properties document a social history of old Pennsylvania German families to the current time. Today the clan is made up of a very wide range of cousins who racially and culturally are White and Black and richly mixed with everything else. Politically, they are Blue, Red, indifferent and expatriate. What binds us all together despite the breadth of diversity, culture and opinions is the family bond. It’s an absolute thing.
January 2016 - VisitPittsburgh, the official tourism promotion agency for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, PA. makes public the latest edition of its Pittsburgh Reunion Planner and Workbook. The 25-page publication is intended to be a handy workbook to help event organizers stay on track, no matter what type of reunion or meeting they are planning to hold in Pittsburgh. The booklet features a full page of reunion ideas from the founder of this website, headlined "Take It from a Professional." Full text>>> VisitPittsburgh and Minerd.com have been in a continuous marketing joint venture since 2010, with the tourist agency's logo appearing on the Minerd.com homepage and on each "Photo of the Month" page since 2010. January 2016 - The Minerd.com Annual Review 2015 is released documenting the site's continuing growth the past year. In May, Minerd.com celebrated its 15th anniversary – launched a new blog – in March and May enjoyed all-time record numbers of visits – and in November reached its 3 millionth visit of all time. The number of visits in 2015 were the highest since 2007 and totaled 288,095. Over the span of 15½ years since the site was first launched, total visits stood at 3,039,129, up 9.8 percent from 2,751,034 last year at this time. During the year, 1,015 new photo images were added to the site, in comparison with 948 last year. At year-end, the site had a grand total of 13,507 archival images, up from 12,492 last year, a growth rate of 8.1 percent. Some 61 new biographies were added in 2015, up 45 percent from 42 last year, for a grand total of 1,593 bios. These bios tell tens upon tens of thousands of family stories unique to the clan. View the report>>>.
|