Tracing the Tribe: Genealogy sites: 9 million visits monthly

Those of us who research our ancestry know how popular genealogy is around the world. However, it's even better when sites devoted to trends recognize and validate what we know to be true.

Genealogy was among the top 10 gaining categories by percentage change in numbers of unique US visitors, according to ComScore.com. The survey was made among home, work and university Internet users.

According to the company's press release of November 20, 2007, the number of unique visitors to genealogy sites rose from 8,265,000 in September 2007 to 8,892,00 in October 2007, with an 8% rise.

According to a just-published Forbes Magazine genealogy story, the number mentioned was higher:

For the past year, genealogy-related Web-traffic has held steady at about 9.1 million US visitors per month, according to ComScore (nasdaq: SCOR - news - people ) data, but newcomers to the business hope to steal that traffic from the old guard of sites and grow it into a huge audience of repeat-visitors.

The story also notes that during the holiday season it might seem that genealogy sites would receive more traffic, but that's not what happens:

"You'd think people would get to talking with family, and then look online," says Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Web-tracking firm Hitwise, who notes that the holidays are actually a low point for genealogy sites, as people on vacation have less computer time.

The Forbes story also speaks extensively about the social networking site Geni.com

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