June 8, 2005

A new study from Nielsen//NetRatings shows that searching for ancestors on the Internet is becoming more and more popular in the UK, with over 1.7 million surfers (seven percent) of the total people online in the country, using the Internet to research their family history in April 2005.

This makes the genealogy category almost as popular as in the US, where 8% of online surfers visited the category in the same month.

"The Internet is ideally suited to helping people research their family tree. Vast amounts of information from census details to birth, death and marriage details, as well as migration and parish records can now be accessed and searched online," said Gabrielle Prior, Nielsen//NetRatings' European Internet Analyst.

The number of visitors to the genealogy category has risen by 44% in the past year, and much of this growth has come from the increasing popularity of Genes Reunited, a UK genealogy site.

In April, 61% of all visitors to the genealogy category visited Genes Reunited, and its audience is now almost three times that of its nearest rivals in the category.

People aren't merely visiting genealogy sites more — they are spending more time on them.

Time spent in the category has more than doubled in the last year, with people lingering nearly 50 minutes per month on family history sites.

The growing popularity of the category can also be attributed to the growth of broadband Internet access from home.

In fact, nearly three quarters of all visitors to genealogy Web sites in April were using a high-speed Internet connection from home.

Not surprisingly, genealogy sites attract older users. The majority of the UK audience for genealogy websites is aged 35 or over. But it is somewhat surprising that more men than women currently visit the sites.

"As more and more people get familiar with the web, we expect to see this category continue to grow in popularity," said Ms. Prior.

Source: eMarketer