Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Sunday, June 14, 2015

The Death of Personal Genealogical Blogs

I presently monitor 285 blogs nearly every day. In past posts, I have commented on my impression that genealogical blog writing and posting was on the decline. Since those, mostly disputed, observations, I continue to see a dramatic decline. This past week, I went with some of my family on a camping trip to Zion National Park in Southern Utah. We were gone for three days. during that time, I accumulated over 100 blogs posts on my Feedly.com reader. There were two things notable about the 100+ posts. First, there were so few. Yes, I have been used to seeing almost that number in an afternoon and three days accumulation is a far cry from the numbers I am used to reviewing. But more importantly was the subject and authorship of these blog posts.

My observations indicate that blog posting by individuals, writing about their own family and their own research, have almost all but disappeared. My own experience with my children is indicative. All together, my children probably have 20 or 30 blogs. Some of them have more than three each. But their posting has dropped off dramatically. It has been weeks and sometimes months without a post on some of the blogs. Why is this? At the same time, we have seen a concomitant increase in texting, Facebook and Instagram postings. If I want to know about my children's activities, I have to go to Facebook or Instagram for updates.

What do I see online in genealogy blogging? I see commercially or business related entities blogging regularly. I also see people promoting themselves or businesses. Granted, there are a few "regulars" out there that keep the channel open, but even most of the regulars are also presenters or participants in the large genealogy conferences. OK, I do have to admit that I have spent my time presenting and had and have a few publications for sale. But what I have made monetarily from genealogy related activities would not even cover the cost of my Internet connection.

It is interesting to review the list of RootsTech 2015 Ambassadors. At the risk of incurring undying ire, I will not go through the list and characterize any of the bloggers, but I will note that some of them do not frequently write about genealogy or family history. This shift from dedicated genealogy bloggers to including those outside the traditional genealogy arena may be beneficial for genealogy and RootsTech, but it does not promote genealogy blogging.

Maybe is is time to turn in the old computer keyboard and go back to doing genealogy like I did for the first 25 years or so, quietly, by myself, and leave the arena of online genealogy to the professionals and promoters?



11 comments:

  1. Interesting observation James. I am a blogger. I continually write about my family research, as do many of the bloggers I follow. I haven't been around as long as some of the "giants" in the blogging world, but I certainly enjoy writing and sharing about my family. I have a good following and enjoy the comments from my readers. I make no money from my blog, nor do I plan to. I do hope that what you say isn't true because I would miss all the good reads. By the way, please don't quit writing because I enjoy reading your posts.
    Thanks James.

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    1. Thanks for the response. You may note my tag line above, some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I write and do genealogy.

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  2. There are times when I think you are correct, James. The knowns -- the big guys in genealogy -- seem to keep posting. But there are many of us smaller bloggers who also keep going. Summer may have something to do with the decrease in posts. I'm hoping that summer has something to do with the decrease in my readership, too. (And a challenging work schedule has prevented me from real family history research for a few months, so my recent posts are more general than usual.)

    I, too, hope you continue to blog. Have you noticed a decrease in readers to your posts?

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  3. Don't stop writing! You are the best genealogy blogger out there! Or at least the only one that regularly posts articles worth reading. A lot of these "promoters" like to fill my RSS inbox with coupons and such, rather than anything useful or interesting. The whole internet is going that way unfortunately, as people are realizing that writing for free just isn't worth their time, and time is money.

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  4. I started a blog about 18 month ago, wrote one blog and haven't done any since. On the other hand, I geo-cache (treasure hunt using a GPS), and I am persevering with continuing writing that. From time to time, I re-assess the blogs I follow. Yours is one that I never consider scrapping. I thoroughly enjoy your writings. I do not know how you are so prolific. As you said in a reply to a comment, you write and do genealogy.
    Many write on very specific families. I find it too time consuming to glean the nuggets out of those writings. You write on genealogical philosophy. Your message is always clear and understandable, thought provoking and unafraid. Please don't stop writing

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  5. I haven't noticed the decline, myself, and feel that family history blogs should be encouraged as a form of publicised genealogy -- far more so than mere trees. There is so much more freedom with the result is more easily accessed by friends/relatives, and generally a lot more interesting.

    There is a 'Family History Writers' Community on Google+, although I admit to not posting much in there. This was because I was uncertain what it was encouraging: actual family-history articles, or articles about family-history blogging.

    There's a good case for sharing such articles to inspire and guide others, and this should be true right across the board, from newbie to professional or academic.

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    1. Of course, one reason I didn't mention here, but I had mentioned on DearMYRTLE (https://plus.google.com/+DearmyrtlePage/posts/fGCJxxWups1), is the lack of sharing in Google+ Circles. I don't think Google has quite got a handle on this yet but it does affect blogs a lot.

      If you deliberately share a post yourself, to different G+ Communities, then you could be accused of self-promotion. However, unless the contacts in your Circles share-it-on then any post gets limited exposure -- of course, someone with your blog readership doesn't have to worry James (grin).

      The case I made before was that maybe the facebook content on a typical post is more immediately assimilated (or even trivial), and so you're quicker to think "reshare". However, there's probably some subtle flaw in the G+ user interface, too, that makes it a rarer thing to do there.

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  6. Please don't turn in the keyboard! Your blog is the best source I have found for Family Tree updates, issues and workarounds.

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  7. I too have noticed a serious decline in blog posts by the blogs I follow. I am sure it is Facebook sucking away the time and attention of the bloggers. I keep posting to my blog, lately pretty frequently. Now I wonder if I am doing something wrong?

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  8. I have always been a lapsed blogger. Writing now and again in spurts. I try to write more frequently but life gets in the way. With a small business requiring constant effort prioritizing by time is important. I think this often happens for bloggers. On Feedly I have recently read a number of posts from non genealogy bloggers I follow saying are leaving blogging (including social media) to spend time with their growing families. This is perhaps a good idea for some families. Less of, 'Not now, Mommy is writing a post' and more of playing with the kids.

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    1. I think your comments probably apply generally to blogging and I would agree except I see no decrease, in fact there is an increase in the use of Facebook and Instagram. If these dedicated family people need to take care of their children, why are they spending the entire day on Facebook etc?

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