An Open Letter to Mr. James Tanner

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