I admit it, I have not been writing on my blog much lately. Health matters, long hours at my job, and life in general are my reasons for taking a bit of a sabbatical.
I have spent the past two months attempting to move my Blog from Blogger to my own website on WordPress, without much success. (Anyone know a good designer/programmer that is available to assist me? )
I was planning to wait to start posting again once my new site was up and running, but since that is not going well - I'm Back Here!
What Does the Future Hold for Genealogy Bloggers?
The buzz around the Genealogy Blogging World lately has been discussion about the future of Genealogy Blogging - is it going to survive in a world that wants everything condensed into 140 Twitter characters and quick updates on Facebook?
Thomas MacEntee over at Geneabloggers recently announced that he is changing his focus (here is the official announcement ) and will not be updating most of the blog. The parts he is not going to continue are the parts I have used and visited. I am going to miss the camaraderie I found there.
Julie Cahill Tarr over at Julie's Genealogy & History Hub recently posted a thoughtful and informative article entitled "What Happened to Genealogy Blogging?" She took the time to review the 350 genealogy blogs on her reading list and found that 63% of them had not been posted to during the last 12 months. But she did find some new blogs to follow.
Amy Johnson Crow posted Friday "Is Genealogy Blogging Dead?" on her self named blog. Her article addressed the need to use both a blog and social media to reach your audience, and why we need to adjust how we post to these different platforms. She also recounts the long lost Blog Carnivals and Awards that were all the rage 5 years ago.
So what is the future of Genealogy Blogging? I think it will continue to evolve and will be different for each blogger. Were you blogging to get rich, to share your research, entertain your family and friends, or just to have an outlet for your writing? Are you willing to learn the social side of blogging, or is that not important to you? Genealogy Blogging, like other forms of communication is evolving at a rapid pace, and we all just need to figure out what we want to put into it, and what we want to get out of it.
So, why am I getting back into Blogging now?
I enjoy blogging. I blog for three reasons 1) to share all the interesting items I learn during my research, 2) a way to find cousins and other relations, and 3) because my all of family get glassy-eyed and tune me out when I start sharing the multitude of John Brown info I have learned. I gotta share it with someone, and my readers are the lucky winners!
