Back in AOL's glory days of the '90s, when it had its own special and high profile areas for fans of various TV shows, DS had a very strong and thriving presence there with
Dark Shadows Online. In '98 DSO held a kind of DS Academy Awards. Voting wasn't just limited to AOL members, it was open to all DS fans online, it was heavily promoted, and several hundreds participated in the voting (Diana Millay was even Mistress of Ceremonies when it came time to announce the winners). The top three vote getters during the preliminary voting round (to set the top three selections for each category for the final voting) for the category of Favorite Storyline were 1897, 1795 and 1840. (It was quite interesting that none of the present day storylines even came close to making the top three.) Ultimately 1840 came in third - but it was a very close vote with only a few dozen votes separating each storyline. So, the point of all this is that 1840 definitely has a significant fanbase in fandom...
And, yes - it's great to see you posting in the WP, DarkLady.