ProGenealogists Inc earlier this year released a study that for the first time identifies the 50 most popular genealogy websites. This list was compiled using the "places rated" approach to average the website traffic rankings from four major web analytic companies.
The top two websites actually tied for first place -- Ancestry.com (a subscription based genealogy records website) and their sister -- Rootsweb.com. Sitting in third place is a little know website MyHeritage.com. This Israeli based website focuses on genealogy community building and networking, and it boast over 23.8 million members worldwide (with a large European and Israeli presence).
In the fourth spot is another subscription service, also owned by the parent company of Ancestry (The Generations Network) - Genealogy.com. Rounding out the top five Internet genealogy websites is a longtime favorite of genealogists - Familysearch.org. This is a major data website sponsored by the LDS Church and includes instruction and reference help.
Nine of the 50 sites on this list are pay or subscription websites. Bryce Barnett, ProGenealogists Operations manager noted, "This illustrates that genealogists understand the value of paying for information."
Half of the sites on this list are data-oriented and another quarter are sites that provide links to genealogy sites on the Internet and data. Longtime genealogists favorite Cyndi's List was number 15 in popularity.
You can see the entire list and links for this top 50 list of Internet genealogy websites on the ProGenealogists website at http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm
