January is the month when many genealogy and family history bloggers announce what they think are the best blogs of the previous year. I have read about a dozen such lists so far this month. And I agree with some choices and disagree with others. But we all have our opinions of what is good (and not so good).

So based on the title of this post, I suspect that you are anxiously waiting for me to list about a dozen lousy blogs. Hey, I may be dumb, but not stupid. I like to think that this blog has a bit of an edge to it, so I hate to disappoint you, but there will be no such list. But below is a list of what I consider to be the characteristics of a lousy blog or blog post:

1. Your page has two sidebars full of so much extraneous garbage, that it distracts me from your posts and stories.
2. You have so much stuff that you are trying to sell, that it is obvious that you are not really interested in telling a story, but are more interested in making a few pennies from affiliate ads and/or Google ads, etc.
3. Your blog posts about your family history are so full of dates and facts presented in a non understandable sequence that I am lost after the second paragraph.
4. You use the word "I" at least twice in every sentence.
5. You include no photos.
6. You have spelling and grammar errors all over your posts.
7. There is no flow to your writing.
8. You write for yourself and not for your audience and that is obvious.
9. You leave the reader puzzled at the end of the post as to why they just expended 3 to 5 minutes reading it.
10. You use so many different colors and fonts that it distracts from the flow of the article.
11. You don't respond/reply to comments or worse - you don't allow comments.
12. You write in a condescending way about how all genealogy researchers should conduct themselves.

I am sure that there are many more, but these are the characteristics that turn me off.

And finally, since this blog is only 3 months old, I didn't expect it to show up on any best list, but it is certainly not on the "Worst" list either. And this I know to be true!

OK, so we have a new year upon us and of course it is time for all good kids like us to write down a list of things that we resolve to do during the year, or change about our behavior. For many of us, the items on the list are the same as the ones from last year, but if we were perfect, we wouldn't have to live here on earth, would we?


Here is my handy dandy list:

• I resolve to not waste any time complaining about how some people in the genealogy world from time to time criticize and are condescending to new family history researchers or hobbyists, no matter how much it ticks me off.
  

• I resolve to spend a heck of a lot more time on Google+, not because it is better for researching and finding cousins (yet), but because it has much more potential to connect with like minded researchers than Facebook (which in my experience, so far, has been better at connecting with potential cousins.)

• I resolve to spend less time following my Twitter stream because most of the time it is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. To fix this, I have created a Favs list of the folks that I am truly interested in following and who by and large have something to say. So 98% of the reading will be of those favorites of mine and the rest will just get a very quick scan. And I will continue to bitch at people for spammng the same link or hashtag chat invitation over 20 times a day.

• I resolve (and this is the obligatory resolution) to spend more time adding sources and citations to my database for those newly discovered "facts" and "proofs" that need to be documented properly.
  

• I resolve to continue blogging my Family History findings so my relatives, whether they care or not, at least have something to read about their ancestors, or feel guilty about for not reading.
  

• I resolve to ignore my own advice. Even though I wrote a post about stopping begging the cousins for photos, documents and artifacts, I will probably beg and bug them anyway.

• I resolve to finish two books from blogs for my 90 year old relatives who do not know how to use the Internet.
  

• I resolve to finish my "Letters from Germany" series that has been so enlightening about the day to day lives of my Braunhart ancestors.
  

• I resolve to continue to write blog posts for The Ancestor Hunt with an edge to them, because stuffy blog posts about genealogy bore the hell out of me.
  

And last but not least, I will continue to be me, and hopefully won't perturb too many people off because of it.