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•The second most popular category is genealogy forums. This category includes everything from online family trees to chat groups to people requesting information about specific ancestors. The most popular genealogy forums are MyHeritage (#2), Geni.com (#5) and Genealogy.com (#7).

•Websites that contains lists and links to other genealogy websites are also a popular category. Ten of the Top 100 websites fall into this category, with the most popular ones being Cyndi’s List (#30), ObituariesHelp.org (#41) and Ancestor Hunt (#48).

Sometimes websites make changes that inadvertently affect their Alexa ranking. A case in point is the US Genweb Census Project (www.us-census.org), which moved to a new computer server in September 2011. This seems to have disrupted their Alexa ranking. At the time of our report (January 2012), the website had dropped below the cut off for the Top 100 List. We expect to see the US Genweb Census Project on the next update to the Top 100 List, especially considering the number of 1940 census records on the website.

•It is good to see several genealogy blogs made the Top 100 list. Dick Eastman’s excellent Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (#19) comes first. It is hard to categorize Dick because he is certainly in a league of his own. He has been providing a great service to the genealogy community for a number of years. The other top genealogy blogs were John Reid’s very informative Anglo-Celtic Connections (#57), Leland and Patty Meitzler’s well-named Genealogy Blog(#81), blog-central at Thomas MacEntee’s useful Geneabloggers (#83), Chris Paton’s must-read British Genes (#87) [Chris recently shut down his other blog Scottish Genes] and Randy Seaver’s fun Genea-Musings (#90).

•The top three US genealogy blogs are Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (#19), Genealogy Blog (#81) and Genea-Musings(#90). Anglo-Celtic Connections is the top Canadian genealogy blog and British Genes is the top British genealogy blog.

• Cemetery and obituary websites are also popular. There are four in the list, headed by Find A Grave (#4), Sysoon (#25), Interment (#39) and LocateGrave (#97).

• We would be remiss if we didn’t mention that three genealogy magazines made the list. Topping this category is our own GenealogyInTime Magazine (#20), followed by Family Tree Magazine (#36) and Genealogy Today (#40).

•Somewhat surprising, only three genealogy societies made the list: Daughters of the American Revolution (#60), American Ancestors – New England Historic Genealogical Society (#70) and The Genealogical Society of Finland (#95).

•Interestingly, more than half (57 to be exact) of the Top 100 genealogy websites are free.

•Six collaborative genealogy websites made the Top 100 list: US Genweb Archives (#23), Free BMD (#35), Genealogy Trails (#54), Ireland Genealogy Project (#79), USGenNet(#69), and the USGenWeb Project (#99).

•We were expecting to see more genealogy DNA testing websites in the Top 100, but only three made the list: 23andMe (#15), Family Tree DNA (#22) and Genebase (#71).

Addendum: One of the challenges of creating a global Top 100 list is the risk of missing a genealogy website in spite of the countless hours spent checking and rechecking so many websites. It appears that we missed a couple of genealogy forums in our inaugural list. Genoom is a genealogy forum from Spain. It has an Alexa value of 112,653, ranking it #35 on the list. Katagogi is a US-based genealogy forum with an Alexa value of 182,312, placing it at #62 on the list. Familiaridade from Brazil is an genealogy forum with an Alexa value of 244,577, ranking it #77 on the list. Genealogie Online from the Netherlands is a genealogy forum with an Alexa value of 249,972. This would put the website around #78 on the list. Lost Cousins is a UK-based genealogy forum with an Alexa value of 285,426. This would put Lost Cousins at around #85 on the list.

Final Thoughts

Genealogy has grown significantly in the past few years and the industry continues to evolve. For example, genealogy forums are becoming more popular every year primarily because they allow people to connect with other like-minded individuals on the internet. At the same time, DNA testing still has not yet taken off. The most interesting trend, however, appears to be towards free genealogy websites. Five of the top 10 genealogy websites are now free.

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Further Resources

Read the Top 100 Genealogy Websites for 2013

Top Trends in Genealogy

Find the newest genealogy records on the internet.

Use the free genealogy search engine.

Read the genealogy tip of the week.

Download the free genealogy toolbar.

Discover some free genealogy wallpaper for your computer.