business logo of Ancestry
How would you rate Ancestry?
grey star
grey star
grey star
grey star
grey star
Australia
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Colin F.
Unfollow Colin F.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Don't waste your money
February 3, 2025

The site is no good.
Do not waste your money.
I paid for the test kit and have waited over 6 weeks. I received an email telling me that my results were in and to click on the tab. I have done this and there is no results listed. There is no one to contact about this issue or any other issue that you may have. They only have an AI response. Very poor Service. This company should have a point of contact. Very disappointed with the lack of aftersales support.

Date of experience: February 3, 2025
Virginia
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow C C.
Unfollow C C.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

I had been a member for over 20 years and had to cancel my subscription because my husband and I are now on a fixed income (only SS checks). I assumed all my information would still be accessible if I had entered it. But I discovered that now Ancestry wants to make money off of me anyway by taking those ancestors away and making me subscribe if I want to see the information! Such a greedy ripoff they are. I gave one star but would rather give them -1 star.

Date of experience: October 28, 2024
Australia
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Debbie L.
Unfollow Debbie L.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

DO NOT USE ANCESTRY
November 2, 2024

This is the third kit I've had to buy this year as all tests come back with no results!
30 Days after sending my latest kit back they still don't know where it is and have not tested it even though I paid for priority testing.
Then they tell you to wait for 40 days. The staff often hang up on you!
Absolutely useless ancestry. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY THEY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A FRAUD

Date of experience: November 2, 2024
Georgia
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow Greg K.
Unfollow Greg K.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

I cancelled membership 1 day prior to a repeated monthly charge due date but was charged 2 days later. Customer service states there is no record of my cancellation. They did cancel this renewal and promised to refund this charge. I will update this review accordingly but this should not have happened to begin with. I am skeptical of this companies business tactics.

Date of experience: August 24, 2024
Spain
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Mark S.
Unfollow Mark S.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

I had Ancestry for a while and thought the results were fun and the site was decent. However I got a got bored of it and cancelled my membership to be the free basic package. Ancestry decided to charge me £49.99 every Quarter anyway, for at least a year. My membership still showed as being the basic package but I got charged regardless. Finally got through to Customer Service who told me there were 2 accounts attributed to my email address. How did that happen? No answer?

"Don't worry though we are refunding you £49.99. Aye no bother, ripped me for £200 but you've given me £50 back. The Customer Service were really rude, I asked for a complaints department email/number to be told there wasn't one.

My recommendation is, do not use! They will do what they can to take your money despite there being no Service given.

Date of experience: August 13, 2024
Illinois
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow jim m.
Unfollow jim m.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Ancestry provides organized public information on family histories, a decent service that will go on to bleed you monthly as numerous offers on DNA, family, International family ties, origins are made. After years of membership should you chose to cancel - have greater patience as canceling membership is a herculean effort. The number of wrong, false misleading leads to family history is a frustrating warm up party to canceling your membership! I cannot recommend this service

Date of experience: July 9, 2024
Georgia
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow M P.
Unfollow M P.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Shame on you Ancestry.com for shady business practices! I had a 14 day free trial and cancelled it online the day before it ended but this did not go through. When I got charged for the 1st month I went in and cancelled again and found there are 3-4 pages of upselling and clicking cancel before they knock off trying to hang onto me. 2 days later I got charged an early termination fee of $25. I've searched Ancestry.com and cannot find a reference to this anywhere! Called Support and then was told of this term. Fee until I firmly said "bull$#*!'. I said I would file a complaint with my credit card and then she gave in and said fee would be refunded. I still have a paid month so will try to use it.

Date of experience: June 23, 2024
India
3 reviews
0 helpful votes
Follow Des R.
Unfollow Des R.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Times change
June 6, 2024

Back in the days we didn't have such technologies, mark my words. Today we can explore the genealogy just using the mobile application which gives you insightful information about your origin.

I ain't believe it's 100% correct, nevertheless it's way cheaper than applying to special labs or companies which are specialized in gathering your DNA and running comprehensive tests. Moreover it's more time-consuming than just using mobile application.

So I pretty much favor them for this app.

Date of experience: June 6, 2024
Arkansas
2 reviews
3 helpful votes
Follow Noel W.
Unfollow Noel W.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

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.

Date of experience: February 24, 2024
Missouri
5 reviews
9 helpful votes
Follow JoAnna T.
Unfollow JoAnna T.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

I was going to try a membership and had all set up but cancelled the same day due to them not resolving an issue of someone posting my mothers incorrect obituary that the funeral home corrected and they threw me to four different people and resolved nothing so I cancelled and have contacted a lawyer! Don't waste your money or time they are lawless and have horrible, incompetent, arrogant, and dumb workers!

Date of experience: February 18, 2024
New Jersey
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Mike T.
Unfollow Mike T.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

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.

Date of experience: April 8, 2024
California
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
Follow connie k.
Unfollow connie k.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Unstable
April 4, 2024

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.

Date of experience: April 4, 2024
GB
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow martin c.
Unfollow martin c.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Down the drain
February 23, 2024

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!

Date of experience: February 23, 2024
Michigan
1 review
4 helpful votes
Follow Kyra J.
Unfollow Kyra J.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

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!

Date of experience: January 14, 2024
Oregon
1 review
4 helpful votes
Follow Ruth E.
Unfollow Ruth E.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

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.

Date of experience: March 19, 2024
New York
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
Follow Cherri F.
Unfollow Cherri F.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Used to love Ancestry!
February 24, 2024

I have never had a paid subscription as the fees are way too much for ordinary people to afford. I also bought DNA kits for my husband, mother and one son who bought one for me. I was able to see the inheritance of MY DNA seeing what was inherited from each of my parents (only one living). Today I got into my account to see my deceased parents DNA that I inherited and it is now gone! It says you need to buy a subscription to see it! I and my son paid lots of money for all these DNA kits to be able to see DNA results! Yes I get to see my DNA origins but why was something I was getting for taking the DNA test taken away from me only to say I can no longer see it unless I pay more money?! I'm furious! What kind of scam are they running? I'm very angry and disgusted, like they don't already have people's family info cornered, they make you pay to see or know it, they must make hundreds of billions of dollars off of people! Ancestry you should be ASHAMED!

Date of experience: February 23, 2024
California
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow Debby g.
Unfollow Debby g.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

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.

Date of experience: January 21, 2024
Florida
1 review
10 helpful votes
Follow joel j.
Unfollow joel j.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

NO REsults 3 try's
July 26, 2021

It has been 2 years since this started. They keep asking for another sample saying the sample is no good but can't tell me why. We are on sample #4 now! My subscription that came with purchase is long expired so even if I get a test results I cannot connect my tree to others without paying heavily

Date of experience: July 26, 2021
Washington
2 reviews
6 helpful votes
Follow Teresa B.
Unfollow Teresa B.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Non-existent support
October 9, 2023

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.

Date of experience: October 9, 2023
Australia
1 review
6 helpful votes
Follow Stephanie T.
Unfollow Stephanie T.
Send Message
Share Review
Report Review

Don't waste your cash
October 1, 2023

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.

Date of experience: October 1, 2023

Overview

Ancestry has a rating of 1.6 stars from 635 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Ancestry most frequently mention customer service, free trial and credit card. Ancestry ranks 53rd among Genealogy sites.

service
171
value
167
shipping
73
returns
87
quality
151