Wednesday, July 7, 2010

101 Best Genealogy Sites for 2010 - from Family Tree Magazine

...
The September 2010 issue of Family Tree Magazine contains the 2010 list of the 101 Best FREE Genealogy Websites. The site says:

"In a bumpy economy, is there any more welcome word than free? When we took a break from checking our credit-card balances and 401(k) accounts to consider this year’s 101 Best Websites, the theme was as obvious as the lint in our wallets: the best free genealogy sites."

The websites are listed by category:

* The Big Picture: Big, free genealogy sites
* Records Resources: Great sources of free online records
* Uncle Sam's Best Sites: Research resources from the US Government
* East of the Rockies: Sites for finding Eastern ancestors
* Western Research Roundup: Help researching in the Western United States
* O Canada: Great places to find Canadian roots
* African-American Roots: Resources for tracing African-American ancestry
* History Lessons: Where to learn about social history
* A Nation of Immigrants: Sites for researching immigrant ancestors
* Great Britain Expectations: Help for genealogists with UK and Irish roots
* European Ops: Sites for researching in Continental Europe
* High-Tech Tools: Online tools that make genealogy easier
* Share and Share Alike: Places for genealogists to gather and share online

Within each category, the top websites are listed alphabetically. There is no list from 1 to 101 - only a number of websites in each of the 13 categories.

My observations:

The emphasis seems to be on websites that provide databases and information about specific topics, although there are some purely social networking and family tree sites (like www.Geni.com, www.SharedTree.com and www.TribalPages.com that don't have "databases") on the list. I didn't see www.MyHeritage.com on the list, and it offers a super surname search engine plus free family tree features.

There is at least one links site - www.CyndisList.com - but I didn't see any of Joe Beine's sites on the list (which are indispensable to me). Likewise, there are no podcast (Genealogy Gems, Genealogy Guys) or videocast (Roots Television) sites on the list.

I saw only one blog - The Ancestry Insider - on the list (and why in the High-Tech Tools section?), since there was no category for news and opinion. Of course, Family Tree Magazine provided a list of the Top 40 Genealogy Blogs earlier this year.

There are several websites that are not specifically for genealogy research on the list (e.g., Facebook, Diigo, Evernote), but are used extensively by genealogists to pursue their research.

What other FREE genealogy website wasn't listed that you think should have been listed, and why? Which website was listed that you think should not have been included on the list?

5 comments:

Tamura Jones said...

The first thing I noticed are the annoying ostensibly contextual kontera adds that pop up all over their pages. Horrible :-(

Unknown said...

Glad you mentioned Joe Beine -- his indexes are invaluable! http://www.genealogybranches.com/

Chris said...

I agree with you that genealogy should be fun, and yours is. Thank you. so much. Chris at AntiqueFamilyPhotos.

Amy Urman said...

Perhaps it would be advantageous to have us all post our Top Ten or more research websites on our blogs. I would be more trusting of my fellow genealogist’s opinions than a company’s idea of what is best.

Joan Miller (Luxegen) said...

In the Canada section I feel Library and Archives Canada should have been included. The link is:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html

There are so many good websites it must be difficult to choose.