Is Interest in Genealogy Declining?

It never occurred to me to even ask the question until I checked out Google Trends, and tried it out with a search for "genealogy".



As you can see above, the number of searches for the term on Google is in steady decline, although the number of news stories is if anything slightly increasing.

Then I tried limiting the search to queries from UK sites. The peak in late 2004 is, I think, associated with the first series of the popular BBC2 TV program "Who do you think you are?". The less pronounced peak in late 2005 and early 2006 is the second series of the program. Despite these peaks the overall trend is down.
The system seems to give realistic results. Try searches for tsunami or Katrina to see the response to a sudden onset catastrophy, or to " global warming" for an issue that's heating up! A search on ancestry, the service we love, and company we love to hate, shows no overall decline with a big uptick in searches in early 2006. Try these searches here.