What's the best web site for genealogy?

It may not be the first that comes to mind, but practically every genealogist has used it. Sure, Google would qualify for that honour too. I determined the best site as the first unsponsored hit, using the ubiquitous google.com, searching on "genealogy".

And the winner is ...



familysearch.org
It's FREE. It's brimming with advice on getting started, advice on searching genealogy records and preserving and sharing your family history. There's access to FREE index transcriptions of parish records and census data (1881 for England, Wales and Canada, 1880 for the US). And there's the Family History Library Catalog where you can find out about non-digitized sources you can order into your local Family History Centre.

This LDS site isn't in the media buzz game. The most recent news item on the site is from 2005, but the first ranking reflects the continuing value of the resources.

Familysearch was also the winner amongst the unsponsored links at google.co.uk and ask.com.

Another winning site was genealogy.com. It came first at google.ca, yahoo.com, and yahoo.co.uk.

In case you're curious about genealogy blogs, for "genealogy blog" searched at google.com the winner is ...




genealogyblog.com
Given the url this shouldn't have surprised me, but it did as I rarely visit. It's heavily US oriented.
I was also surprised at the number of death notices of prominent genealogists. Genealogy doesn't come to mind as a high risk occupation. Genealogy as an extreme sport maybe?