New to the top ten free list this year is WikiTree at number eight and Roots Chat at number nine. WikiTree is a free collaborative worldwide family tree that continues to grow steadily in popularity. Roots Chat is the UK’s largest free family history forum website.
Rounding out the list at number ten again this year is Genealogy.About.com, where Kimberly Powell writes very useful and informative genealogy articles.
For genealogists not familiar with some of the names in the top ten free list, they are all worth checking out. It is possible to conduct a considerable amount of genealogy research without having to resort to subscription websites.
Rising Genealogy Stars of 2014
Rising genealogy stars are websites that made the largest movement up the Top 100 List over the past year. This year, we have split the rising genealogy stars into two categories: those in the top 20 genealogy websites and those in the next 80 genealogy websites. We have done this to reflect the fact it is much harder to make significant gains for a genealogy website that is already near the top of the list.
The table below shows the rising genealogy stars of 2014.
For the top 20 genealogy websites, three candidates stood out. Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter had the biggest gain, moving from 22nd place in 2013 to 11th place in 2014. Second was GenealogyInTime Magazine, which gained five positions to move into 16th place. And finally, Ancestry.ca moved up four positions to 15th place.
It is interesting to note that two out of the three largest movers (Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and GenealogyInTime Magazine) both provide independent advice to genealogists.
For the next 80 genealogy websites, the largest mover on the list was Newspapers.com. This is an Ancestry website launched in 2012. It is designed to tap into the historic newspaper segment of the genealogy industry. Second is ProGenealogists, the official research arm of Ancestry.
