In the photo above are the descendants of William Elmer & Peggy Rich Williams. They were the parents of my Dad and my Aunt Sally. This family photograph that was taken around June or July c.2000-2001. They were either on their way to Fripp Island in SC or they were returning when they stopped at our lake house in Lexington, NC.
Starting with the back row from left to right are My Dad's sister Sally, Michael Wood (married to Luann) my Uncle Bill, my husband Tommy, my brother in law Jason (married to Susie), my cousin Bo and his wife, Mary Ann. In the middle row are my sister Kathy and holding her son Bryan, me, my sister in law Carolyn (married to Billy) and holding her daughter Kaitlyn, my brother Billy and holding his son William, my sister Susie, my Momma and my Daddy. Down in the front from left to right are my cousin Luann, my nephew, TJ, my cousin Alex (1C1R), my brother in law Thomas (married to Kathy), next to him is my cousin Arron (1C1R) my cousin Megan (1C1R), her friend, and my cousin Ben (1C1R).
We have always been close and I remember we would go to visit them in Kentucky and they would come visit us in Florida. I remember one summer when my cousin Bo and his brother Chip (not pictured) were both playing baseball and it seemed that we were always at baseball field! We definitely need a family reunion!
Today I read a blog post, "What is the Future of Genealogical Blogs" by Mr. James Tanner of the blog, Genealogy's Star. Below is my open letter to Mr. Tanner.
Dear Mr. Tanner,
I read with interest your post this morning titled "What is the Future of Genealogical Blogs". You have some valid points however, I am sorry to say that I disagree with your point of view.
I am an independent & non-commercial blogger who writes about my family, our allied families and a few other related things. Fortunately, I have found some good mentors because if I had seen this blog post last year, I might not have taken the chance to write about my family history. There are many of us out there who write blogs to document our family's history for the sheer enjoyment of doing so and for me personally it is a labor of love.
From the beginning, I decided I did not want advertising on my blog. It is a personal choice for me, I do not want my readers distracted. I can see where bloggers, who are also genealogists, might get tied up in the commercialism as you call it but I also see that for some they use that commercialism to pay it forward to the genealogy community in many ways.
In a world where social media is so dominant at this time, I believe that we in the genealogy community should take advantage of it. For the month of October I had 3,712 views on my blog Dawning Genealogy. A record for me personally, I can only contribute the rise in my followers to these reasons, (1) word of mouth, (2) Geneablogger's, where I have met some of the best bloggers and which has a list of thousands of bloggers, (3) my Facebook page for my blog, Dawning Genealogy and a newly acquired Twitter account, (4) the individual groups I am part of for blogging, as well as genealogy through Facebook. I also do not advertise my posts nor do I boost them on Facebook and finally (5) it keeps me in touch with my family who live near and far. I also promote other bloggers and their posts on my genealogy Facebook page as wells as Twitter.
I've been researching my family's genealogy since I was 18 years old. I did not start blogging until June of 2014. I am planning on launching another blog in 2016. I, like you will continue to write my story and that of my families. If by any chance you actually do read this, thank you for taking the time to listen to my thoughts and if by any chance we should meet, Mr. Tanner, at genealogical event the first round of coffee is on me.
Sincerely,
Dawn Kogutkiewicz
