As usual, the most popular category is ancestral records. We estimate it gets 46% or almost half of all traffic to genealogy website. Next are family tree websites, which get about 18% of the traffic, followed by genealogy forums at 9%. Cemetery websites get 6% of the traffic and historic newspapers get about 5% of the traffic.
Next there are a series of smaller categories. At about 2% of the internet traffic each there are blogs, link websites and DNA testing websites. The ‘other’ category includes everything else (magazines, search engines, articles, societies, wikis, services, software and ethnic genealogy).
As would be expected, the most important thing to a genealogist is being able to find their ancestors. It is the reason why ancestral record websites, family tree websites and genealogy forums dominate the list. Combined they represent almost ¾ of all visits to genealogy websites.
Final Thoughts
Congratulations to all the websites that made the Top 100 List in 2014. We thought we would end with the table below, which provides a good overview of the entire genealogy industry.
A couple of points to note:
• The top ten genealogy websites get over one third of all the traffic to genealogy websites. Ancestry.com alone gets about 14% of all genealogy traffic.
• The top 100 genealogy website combined get about 80% of all genealogy traffic.
• Genealogy continues to grow overall, but the growth is not even. Interest in genealogy spiked in 2013. This was probably due to the fact the US 1940 census was fully translated near the end of 2012 (the US represents about 65% of the genealogy industry and the release of a US census is a big event that occurs once every ten years).
• Comparing 2014 numbers to 2012 shows that genealogy continues to grow about 12% a year.
The ability to find ancestral records and build family trees online continues to get easier with each passing year. Traditionally, these have been major roadblocks for new genealogists. However, over time these barriers are getting lower, effectively making it easier for people to find their ancestors.
At the end of the day, finding ancestors is what it is all about. This should help genealogy to continue to grow in the future.
Further Resources
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Read the 50 Best Genealogy Brick Wall Solutions.
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