You might notice that things look a little different here on the main blog! When I went to upgrade and migrate to the new server, I discovered that I couldn’t use my previous WordPress theme so it was a good time to search for a new one. I’m still playing around with things so don’t be surprised if things look a little different each time you visit over the next few days/weeks/months. Mostly I’m just happy that I got all of the old posts and comments over to the new blog since that was a little dicey for a while there!

Hello to any readers who stumble upon this before the upgrading starts! My webhost is going to be migrating to new servers over the month of June and I’m really hoping that it will solve some issues I’ve been having for a few years now. I haven’t really had the time to migrate to a new webhost so I just stuck it out. Part of the upgrade process may impact the blog part of the site, so I’m going to do some testing in their ‘sandbox’. BUT, before I can to that, I have to do some upgrades that may also muck things up before I can even get to the testing part. I’m trying to back everything up in every way I have available, but there is still a chance things will break. If something goes awry, check the Q&A blog and/or my personal blog since they are hosted on Blogger and won’t be affected by these issues.

Yes really! It took being in ‘stay at home’ mode for over two months during a worldwide pandemic to get time to do it, but I actually have been updating things on the main site. For several years now, most of the activity on the site has been here on this blog and on the Q&A blog, and even that has fallen from peak levels of a few years ago. A large part of that is that I went through a big job change about 4 years ago and it ate up more time and a LOT more of my energy. But with the pandemic, a lot of the most energy-consuming parts of my job are on hold since they deal with crowds of people and departmental visiting scholars and obviously none of those things are happening right now. Plus I get back all of the time driving to and from the office! (I am looking forward to getting back into the office eventually, but I’ve got to say that I really like the 3-second commute from my bedroom to my dining-room-turned-office!)

I have been wanting to consolidate and re-work some sections of the site for quite a while now and simplify the main page and I am finally making some progress on that. Some of this is to clear out some old and outdated things and to lay groundwork for an eventual whole site rework I want to do. I’m going to list all of the changes below more for my own future reference than anything else since I really doubt most people would find it interesting. 😀

* I’ve removed the “FAQ” section (and the link from the main page) and taken the info from those pages and incorporated them into a new “About This Site” page and the reworked “Contact Information” page. I’ve also incorporated the info on the old “Copyright, image use, and linking information page” into the “Contact Information” page. I’m going to be changing all of the links on the sidebars of pages to the new pages too.

* I removed some old and outdated information on the “Student Help” page, which has left it pretty barebones. I’ll either consolidate it into another page or fill it back out with updated info, but I’m still trying to decide which.

* I’ve gone through and updated the “Links” section and removed dead links. I’ve moved the “Elizabeth and Elizabethan England” links into the “People” links to consolidate stuff. I’ve also removed some links in a few categories that I’m no longer adding new links to (these are usually the ones that drew the most annoying, spammy link requests so good riddance!). I’m also working on the “Image Use Contacts” page and will add it to a few more places. I’ve removed some dead links but I still need to update it with some new contacts. The big problem with updating that page is that the “image use” page (if it exists at all) is one that tends to get moved around so the info on my page can quickly get out of date. So for now I’m just linking to main pages in most cases. I’ve also moved the “Movies and TV” page into the “Links” section and will eventually remove it from the main page.

* Removed some “Secondary Sources” in the “Texts and Documents” and added links to them on Google Books and the Internet Archive. I’ve left one that I couldn’t find on either of those sites, but if it shows up I’ll remove my version.

* Removed my old “Recommended Reading” list that was from a Tudor History class I took in college over 25 years ago.

* Updated the picture on the “Places” index page and removed the places that I have been intending to add but I haven’t yet. Those are still coming soon though! And I have SO MANY new photos to add from my trip in 2015. I also updated the title picture on the “Black and White Tudor Buildings” page to a new one of Palmer’s Farmhouse and updated the caption.

* I’ve finally cleaned up most of the “Topics” section. I’ve moved most of the stuff that’s going to the “Glossary” section and I removed some old, barebones stuff. I’m still working on the pages that need to go over to the “Who’s Who” section so those are still there for the time being.

* I’ve migrated the posts from the TudorCast blog into this blog, which you can access thought the “podcast” category on the sidebar. Even if I ever get around to podcasting again, I’ll just completely relaunch everything since my old stuff got so out of date.

I think that’s it for this round! Once I finish some more of the “housekeeping”, such as finishing the remaining behind the scenes tasks to get the site fully secure, I’ll move on to working on content. In particular, I’m probably going to be working on the “Places” section since I have so many more places to add that I’ve visited and lots of new photos to add for places that I’ve re-visited. Stay tuned for more!