Ancestry

My wife has been using ancestry.com for almost two years now. Recently a lot of the data she has entered just starts disappearing. She has reached out to their support and has gotten no help whatsoever. They don't reply to her emails, her phone calls, nada. I want to personally thank ancestry.com for being on the receiving end of this madness. I guess they won't mind losing that membership money. My advice is to stay away from them.

Yes, Ancestry seems expensive and the membership has gradually increased over time. But what do people expect? Their database is massive and growing. It's way better than MyHeritage. I never find much on that site and I've just grown accustomed to Ancestry's layout. I love their throughline guide (not meant to be set in stone), and their hints are helpful (but also not meant to be taken without checking into them on your own). I love that you can build multiple trees (I have many experimental ones to sort out confusion on family lines). I love that you can manage the trees and DNA belonging to your family members. I love that all of the trees and DNA that others share with me are compiled into an easy-to-find and navigate list. I love that no one can change your tree unless you make them manager of it. I love that everything you attach to your tree stays attached, even when you take breaks from paid membership. No, you cannot view those attached things while you are not a paying member, but once you renew your membership, they are all still there and viewable again. This is why you should download them while you are a paid member, save them in your files, and upload them into your tree as photos. Then they will be viewable during unpaid breaks from membership. Ancestry is a huge continuously growing database. New stuff is continuously being added. Their DNA database dominates all autosomal DNA databases thus far (in my opinion). They allow you to upload DNA from other testing companies (which is kind of them). Sure they are a huge corporation that understandably wants to make large sums of money, but based on all of the things they offer that other sites don't, I think it's worth the money. Also, if you remain patient and wait for sales you can save quite a bit. I dapple with other family tree building and research sites, but Ancestry has remained my favorite thus far. Once you learn how to navigate, and what not to do when building and adding to your tree, it is an awesome genealogy tool. When used with sites offering DNA tools (like DNA painter, triangulation, and one-to-many comparison) it's even more beneficial. So yes, they are pricey but to me...they are where I get the most bang for my buck. At least, so far.

Ancestry rates keep going up and up. They nearly doubled my costs and started charing semi annually to mask the scam. I pay for Newspapers.com plug in which has not worked for over a year. They refuse to address it. Now they have the nerve to make software fixes and want to charge me another $9.99 per month to use them.

So their overpriced non-functioning software doesn't work and now they want me to pay more to fix it. What a crock! SCAM SCAM SCAM

Free trial is impossible to end without calling customer service. Highly deceptive offers claim you can cancel online. You cannot. Then customer service tries to upsell you on keeping your subscription despite being firm about cancelling. This is unethical, illegal and breach of trust. I would never use this service again and recommend nobody ever gives them credit card info.

Started out in December and received errors during the process, this will be the 3rd times I'm giving samples of my DNA. And still waiting.

I was an Ancestry member for well over a decade. Paid annual memberships and had great customer service experiences, until now. They tell you that annual memberships save you money but that leads you into getting bigger packages and then automatically renewing your subscription and you cannot get a refund as it is written into their policy to deny refunds. Canceling now and never returning to Ancestry!

I've been with Ancestry since 2005 and have endured the constant raise in their fees. I have never had them just charge me - because I turned off the automatic charge. They have to contact me. So no issue there.

My main issue is people who copy other trees as if it is the gospel truth without sources. Inexperienced or just plain stupid? Also users who put these dumb photos of flags, and other things to identify their ancestors. It's garbage that gets sent to everyone who have the same common ancestors.

Also seems everyone is Native American. They attach Dawes or Baker files to an ancestor who died 130 years ago and that's their proof. It isn't. It's sloppy genealogical research.

I've decided that after years, it's time for me to call it quits once my membership expires. I'm in the process of saving everything because Ancestry does seem to think they own our ancestors! So no where to transfer unless you use their program that has yet another fee. I am tired of been nickel and dined to death.

Other than that, it used to enjoyable and a wonderful hobby until the grownups left and now a bunch of losers (ancestry employees as well as stupid users) have ruined it.

Ancestry was until a year or so ago, simple to use, uncluttered and just about 100%, now I wouldn't rate it 20%. Full of useless links that are difficult if not impossible to over-ride, where is the old start page? Stories everywhere of no interest or relevance to my family research. Looking for alternatives!

Be careful on Ancestry, you may put hours into building you tree only to have the app crash and lose whole lines of data and connections. I have also gone to the trouble of adding photos etc, only to have it disappear. It's too expensive to have this keep happening. I'm going to cut my loses now.

First of all you are making it impossible for me to work on their tree with all your daily scheduled maintenances you are basically not letting use what I am paying for and its quite a bit. I feel like I am wasting my time and money now. Second my DNA says I get my Scottish from both Parents. My Dads DNA says he has no Scottish. Seems like you are guessing. I have been using Ancestry for 25 years and WAS pretty happy, now I am very upset. It is very stressful to use you site. I hope you fix your issues soon.

I cancelled my membership at Ancestry.com / Ancestry.org in early July of this year (2023) by calling the support line. Today I was reviewing my bank account activity and noticed that I was still being charged every month since July. I realized it was my fault that I did not make sure it was canceled, so I canceled it online. Ancestry charged me $25 fee for cancellation and still charged me the monthly membership fee as well. When I called to find out why, they basically said that they do not have any records of me calling in July snd that they will not refund my charges for this month either. My advice to anyone using this service is to be careful of being charged after cancellation.

Horrible site. I had all my photos set to private as well as my trees and someone was able to use them. What really has me upset they used my info to create a tree that has my deceased father and sister as another women's husband and child. Horrifying! Stay away or use code names for everyone in your tree. I have requested the removal of at least the pictures of my family members from that users tree (several times) and it's fallen on deaf ears.

I have been a member since 2020 and was happy enough with the site, however realised today that I have been overcharged for the last 6 months and when I queried it I was advised "no refund policy"! But it's an error! I've been charged to use the US site ( which means converted to Aussie dollars I'm paying almost double!) And when I threatened to cancel my subscription after 3 years they were more than happy to cancel and get rid of me! Terrible consumer service and a refund policy that serves only their company bottom line.

I paid full price several years ago for the DNA kit. Sent it in found it very useful. Then they ask us to fill out traits info, now we have to pay for the info of traits we supplied them for free. No I can't even get into DNA due to their new 2 step rule. It's impossible to sign in, even with a code. Grrrrrrrr! Bah humbug stay away from Ancestry DNA

A total waste of money. Relatively quick processing but I didn't get my haplogroupes... Guessing nationality is useless - I already know it...

Good DNA product, but when signing up I specifically un-checked all memberships and fees. 3 months later they take a fee anyway. No direct customer support, just a terrible chatbot.

Recommend once you have your results go into you're account and check that ancestry have not added memberships to your account to scam you.

I had my DNA analyzed some years ago and thought I would do it again as the technology is so much better now. But the results this time were much less precise, not more. Very generic references to Scandinavia whereas before the test pinpointed Sami and Nowegian, no information about my Dutch heritage this time (and I look just like my Dutch grandmother so don't be thinking anything), no mention of the Italian or maybe Greek (would love to know which one), or the 1% Ashkenazi Jew. Some general information about Germany (hey, thanks I didn't know anything about Germany!) when the prior test was more specific, namely Alsace.
Waste of money.

I would vote ZERO stars if that were an option! Absolutely worthless for doing any type of search, and when you try to cancel the "free" trial, they STILL BILL YOU! AND CHARGE A $25 "CANCELLATION FEE"! SCAMMERS!

PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS: I purchased a gift for my friend, and Ancestry gave me a $1 subscription, stating it's a part of their AMAZING deal. They put you on a subscription automatically without letting you know and you have to go on their website to cancel. As a result,I was charged $99 for a KIT my friend didn't even activate, and they would not give any refunds. This is beyond insane, especially given the support tech just ended our chat randomly. DO NOT RECOMMEND purchasing anything from this company because they will send you all these wonderful promotions so it seems you pay less when they actually charge you twice as much for a mystery subscription you signed up for without knowing. That's insane.

I had my hopes up just to be let down I took the dna test waited the first thing they told me my dad had past away nothing about my mom or my brother or sister I had to get on another site and search I found my dad sister and brother basically I was told not to call again see ancestry wants to hear the good story's not the bad ones I wish I would have just left alone

I paid more money to subscribe to Ancestry as opposed to other genealogical research sites, as their claim and other online reviews stated they have the greatest depth of information. I soon found out they have a lot of information, but the data may not be true. When you accept their hints, even though the sight lists if you are researching the same person, it often creates a duplicate. This causes chaos in your tree. I have tried to reach their support on multiple occasions, and they have no answers and will not escalate. Don't bother with this site, just do your own internet research.

My daughter paid to have her family tree traced. My Grandmother was a pure breed Lenape Indigenous North American. My daughter's family tree results didn't show she has any Lenape Blood running through her veins. My Grandfather met my Grandmother on an Indian Reservation in Ontario Canada in the late 19th century. My grandmother had no birth certificate and her birthday was approximate year,month and day. When my Grandmother and Grandfather migrated to central Pennsylvania. She had to purchase forged birth certificate. That gave her the last Name of Moore. My Grandmother didn't even have an actual last name. Her last name was considered the name of the Lenape Sub Tribes Name she came from. My Grandmother's immediate family members came from somewhere along the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. She could fluently speak her native language and learned to speak the English language fluently. If Ancestry is accurate? Why doesn't my daughter's family tree show she has 25% indigenous native North American Blood running through her veins? It shows just the available immediate family members information they could find. As soon as there is no record of a immediate family member. My Grandmother is a immediate family member. These ancestry companies fail at giving you a accurate family tree. No real DNA test costs $100.00.Im am in no way mocking these ancestry tracing companies. When these ancestry companies can find all the information of your family tree. They can give you a very accurate family tree record. Back to at least 1700's. Starting with the first 2 people that started your family tree.

Couldn't find death records of someone I been wanting to find out how they passed. Tried my name as well just to see if it would work even Google has me on there. Tried 10 different people and no information what so ever came up. Also it scammed me into signing up for the free trial cuz when I did search it had someone's name there but when I did click it it was a whole different person from the Philippines. Couldn't know that till I signed up. This site sucks