My Top Ten Genealogy Websites

Randy Seaver posted  his list of his Top 10 Genealogy Websites.  I find it intriguing to know what other genealogists consider essential websites for research and decided to add my top ten. These are genealogy websites I use daily or weekly or perhaps only monthly but I use them frequently for my own ancestor research.

Of course each of us has our list of favourites depending on our research areas of interest so everyone's list should be unique. But Randy and I both agree that Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org are our top two. Here's my list of genealogy websites I'd be lost without:

1. Ancestry.com - ($) pay site but my absolute #1. I visit several times daily in my search for Canadian, American and English ancestors.

2. FamilySearch - (free) Lots of images and indexes world-wide. I probably only frequent it 2 or 3 times monthly. I confess that I find the search function not as friendly as it once was. I use it for my American and English ancestry

3. Free BMD - (free) Civil Registration Indexes. My mother's ancestry is solidly English so I use this site a lot (several times a month) to find ancestors in the index to Births, Deaths and Marriages after 1837.

4. The British Newspaper Archive ($) I love this site for finding newspaper articles about my English ancestors. I use it about twice a month.

5. The National Archives UK (free) Lots of online documents and very reasonably priced documents you can download instantly. I use this monthly for my English ancestors.

6. Library & Archives Canada (free) - dozens of free online databases for anyone with ancestors who lived in Canada. I use this site at least once a month.

7. Newspaper Archive ($) I love newspaper sites and wish there were more for Canada. But I use this one several times a year for my Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado and New York ancestors. It's tied with GenealogyBank ($) in my #7 spot.

8. Trove. (free) Another newspaper site (and more!) for Australia. I have found many newspaper records here for my Australian and English ancestors.

9. Cora Web (free) If I want to know anything about ships passenger lists to Australia I head to Cora's site. I don't go that often but I know it's there when I need it.

10. Olive Tree Genealogy (free) Yes I know it's my site. But I honestly use it as my first stop to find ships' passenger lists to Canada and to USA, and New York records (births, marriages, naturalizations, almshouse, orphans etc)