The Worst Genealogy Blogs of 2012

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!

---