MyHeritage.com
MyHeritage is the only online genealogy platform to present any serious challenge to Ancestry.com. MyHeritage offers more than 6 billion searchable documents, a clean site design, and some of the best genealogy research and presentation tools on the internet. The platform is available in 42 languages and has unique tools that translate surnames into different languages for more complete searches.
LivingDNA
Living DNA is a global company made up of a collaboration of 100+ leading scientists, researchers and genetic experts, operating in the US and Europe. The organization was put together to explore the notion that people are all made up of the same type of DNA, and therefore conflicts concerning race should be a thing of the past. LivingDNA tests offer a keen focus on worldwide ancestry, more than many of its competitors.
WorldVitalRecords.com
This is one of the best genealogy sites for beginners. With a combined subscription with sister site MyHeritage.com, it also offers the data and tools that expert genealogists will appreciate. The site has billions of historic newspaper pages, a good depth of United States records, and a strong array of international genealogy resources. WorldVitalRecords has good features (and a few quirks). Getting data access to MyHeritage.com is worth the subscription price.
GPSorigins
GPS Origins DNA tests revolutionize the DNA testing industry. Since 1995, GPS Origins has taken ancestral genealogy to the next level. Unlike most other DNA tests, GPS Origins have the technology to pinpoint the precise location of where your DNA stems from, not just the general region. With this technology, GPS Origins is able to track your DNA back, up to 1,000 years ago, to the exact village where your ancestors lived.
GenealogyBank.com
GenealogyBank provides one of the best sites on the internet for accessing historic newspaper pages. It offers more than a billion records from better than 7,000 newspaper titles, covering the time period from 1690 to 2010. The site is easy to use and has a good image viewer for reading news pages. Other data collections are available on GenealogyBank, including Social Security death records and a rare books collection. The newspaper collection alone is worth the annual subscription cost.
FindMyPast.com
FindMyPast is a very solid genealogy platform for those with an interest in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States. Offering more than 8 billion digitized records, FindMyPast has particular strength with UK and Irish records, including the 1939 British census. Irish, Welsh, and Scottish resources stretch back as far as the year 1200. It also offers good records resources for the U.S. and Australia/New Zealand. Unlike other genealogy sites, FindMyPast allows users to purchase access to individual documents.
Archives.com
Beginning genealogists and those on a fixed budget will find Archives.com to be a useful and enjoyable genealogy platform. Its more than 300 data collections include more than 4 billion online records with a U.S. and European focus. It has family tree building tools and an elegant, clean design. The annual subscription cost is attractive, but experienced family historians could outgrow the site. That’s not a problem, either, since it’s owned by Ancestry.com, which no doubt welcomes graduates from Archives. >>Visit Archives.com
NewspaperArchive.com
This one web site offers access to more than 400 years of digitized newspaper pages from the United States and 22 other countries. That’s billions of articles from more than 7,400 newspaper titles. It has a very solid search engine and tools that allow saving documents and search terms. Lower cost subscriptions have limited page viewing, so it’s best to invest in the unlimited plans.
MyTrees.com
For genealogists willing to share data, MyTrees.com offers a month of free access to this family tree connections site. Those who upload a family tree to the database can get free access. The site has information on more than 600 million names, including 354 million names contained in family trees. More than 1 billion records include information extracted from the uploaded trees from customers. MyTrees has very flexible pricing plans, so you can use the site long term, or just to do some data mining.
