It’s been a few weeks, courtesy of another one of those eternal Januarys, since Series Four of the podcast finished, and we sent Krampus packing!

In this time I have enjoyed watching how the seven guest episodes, trailer, and bonus episode have fared in the download stats. I’ve also taken this time to reflect on the wonderful conversations I had with the guests during recording, both on and off the mic.

Like all previous series of the podcast, Series Four taught me plenty of new things about family history and our world history too that I’d not encountered in my own family research – unravelling adoption records, Irish history, detailed Swedish admin, the daily lives of Free People of Colour in the 19th Century, and Else’s rollercoaster of a DNA journey to say the least. I hope that you, as listeners, were also able to pick up some new pieces of information or research inspiration as you listened to the episodes.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who pressed play on an episode of this series. Once again, it has exceeded the previous series’ download figures (an industry measure), and saw the show chart in Apple Podcasts’ ‘Top Shows’ for History in Ireland, UK, and New Zealand repeatedly, as well as make its chart debut in Spain. Previous series are also merrily gaining downloads too – some are fiercely battling each other in the stats, much to my amusement.

Series Four also saw the podcast’s 90th listener country tune in, and it really amazes me that almost half of all countries on this planet have had me emphatically welcoming them to an episode with a ‘hello…’.

The success of the show is of course down to my guests, and therefore I feel a deep level of gratitude towards them, for giving up their time to not only record an episode with me (which takes about 1hr), but also all the preparation that they inevitably do before the recording session begins.

So, thank you so much to Linda Kvist, Else Churchill, Shaquan McDowell, Janice Nickerson, Paul Roberts, Claire Bradley, and Simon Last for making Series Four a success.

I must also thank John Spike for the further adventures of Sándor Petőfi, Jim Kirk for bringing us Edgar Allan Poe on the verge of writing The Raven, and Courtney Dunn for surprising us with a voice of the time machine’s computer.

Thank you.
Andrew