Comment by Russ Brady on October 18, 2014 at 11:31am

My feeling is that blogs in general and with family history especially just complicate the search for family genealogic information. An example is a search on Walsh Family History gives many cutesey blogs by people who what to give the history of their marriage and their "special" members complete with photos. Sorry but this is no help to a person struggling to find Irish family records for their great grandparents and ultimately just clutters a landscape already cluttered with the bloggings of the over entitled who feel their voice or opinion matters when generally they are just uninformed and frustrated that people around them won't listen to them. There a many family history websites already some, like Ancestry.com overcharge for their services and others like familysearch.org do not, but all have ample space for those who want to document family stories, histories etc. These sites whether free or for fee at least give central areas to search for more information on your genealogy.

Comment by Gerry Regan on October 18, 2014 at 4:43pm

Russell, thanks for your perspective here. I might disagree though. I find family history stories hugely compelling. They give flesh to the bones provided by the data, and are inspiring to me. Cannot a researcher simply choose which information is helpful, harvest that and meanwhile enjoy the storytelling. Do you have an example of a blog that you find useless?

Comment by Russ Brady on October 18, 2014 at 5:51pm

Gerry, the example was there when I searched on Walsh family, Walsh family history, Walsh genealogy, but I can't find it now. If an example is that scarce it's not worth the long rant. The histories are compelling. The most compelling are the stories peopled by those who seemed doomed to failure. Michael Walsh and Brigid Flaherty were from Derry (or Sligo depending on which history you subscribe to) and Cork. Both born in 1865 they managed to find each other, marry and come to America or come to America and marry. Their boys were successful in the main becoming lawyers or doctors or business owners, the girls married well in the main. I find my grandmother's story more compelling. She married a man who like Tim Finnegan had a love for the liquor, but she managed to raise seven kids with a strong sense of their God and of right and wrong. She died at age 45 when her youngest was 13. They may have skipped a generation, but the men were largely successful; not Groton or Yale successful, but successful and the women married well. A generation was skipped and then continued. There's some blog material in those stories, but they have to be imagined now unless my cousins have documented them. All the parents, aunts and uncles have passed. Likely this is a common story, but no less compelling. So much for an example of a useless blog.

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