AncestryReviews 636

Ancestry.com is another Mormon organization that mines all of your hard research and data for free and presents it as their own research and knowledge. If you pay for their DNA testing, they send you these "maps" which solely reflect where your ancestors lived during the past 1000 years, all of which information they got from you for free and you already knew. If you pay the high price of their DNA testing, and you ask them for a detailed DNA report, they refuse to give it to you, but send you countless advertisements seeking more money from you. Their DNA tests are schlock and phony, total fraud. No haplo groups. No mitochondria information. No details or usable information. Ancestry.com is Total Fraud and should be investigated and forced out of business. Class Action Lawsuit anyone?

Lets start out by saying that I have had my DNA checked by 3 companies. I have extensively checked my ancestry background by papers files, birth certificates etc.
There were some dead ends (adoptions) so I used this company to help out. They provided a comprehensive and detailed look at my DNA that mirrored in many respects what I already knew. But they showed when and from where my family immigrated which was exactly the information I had but with some surprises too. For example they added other details like that I had some German ancestry that was greater than I thought and were specific about locations. A point that I would like to make is that if you have less than 1% of anything, that is what they call DNA noise, disregard as you can only go back 7 generations. Altogether I highly recommend this site. 5 stars plus!

Not sure what's going on over there, but obviously reading the reviews I'm not alone. I've been a member for probably 15 years now, and even they can't access my account. I have one computer here that I can see the entire tree and all the people in it, but I dont know how thats working or how long it will last. Then what? Years of research down the drain I suppose.

Not sure what to do now, but somehow I need to figure out a way to download all the data and research because I think theyre going to lose it all and according to their terms and conditions if that happens, tough luck.

I'd advise not giving them your money, if there are problems providing any of the promised service on their end it doesn't matter and you're out whatever you paid them.

I was born in Germany to German parents and I can trace my family in Germany back 4 generations. To my surprise, according to ancestry.com I am 72% British, which, by the way, is more than the average Brit.
So I dug a little deeper and turns out that they hadn't even tested anyone from Germany. There was only a region Europe West and they had only tested 166 people in that region. Are you freaking kidding me? So Germans, Austrians, Swiss, French, Dutch, Belgians are all bunched together and all they tested was 166 people? For real? Oh, and for that British ancestry, they have only tested 111 British people. Ever heard of the European migration? They Germans actually invaded England, not the other way around, so maybe, just maybe, if they had bothered to learn some history and test thousands of people, not just a few hundred, they may actually get some accurate results. Don't waste your money!

I'm a veteran genealogist RESEARCHER. I don't copy other people's work, because I want to have proofs of my connections. While I find the records very helpful, I waste a lot of time having to retry because of error messages. Usually if I try again I get results, but it's time consuming and frustrating. The past few days the site has been down and unusable. Not a peep from ancestry.com. No notice on their website. Just unusable.

I have had an ancestry account since about 2006, so this isn't a weekend freebie review. I had a paid account until they went into the non working downgrade they forced us to change to. Nothing works consistently on the site. For the price they charge they should not have daily issues such as... page not available... we're having problems... you have no hints (when you have over 1000) nor when you click on your tree should you get a message such as "We are currently unable to find the tree you are trying to access. We may be experiencing technical difficulties, or it is possible that the tree owner has removed this tree." Yes YOU ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES again! Since they jacked up the price and charge you for everything, their service has gone down to nothing. Its clear no one at ancestry has a family tree or the site would work and be user friendly. Every day there are issues with the site! I recently purchased an account due to special offer and in hopes they corrected their issues only to find everything has gotten worse. I have had nothing but problems of one sort or another so today I decided to do something better with my time. Warn Others! Join only if you don't plan to work on your family tree or unless you enjoy paying for "we're experiencing technical difficulties" and very little gets done on your tree! DNA tells you nothing really. Where your ancestors may have come from 60,000 years ago (one test they have) or where some came from. That test will show you people who might be related if they have an ancestry account.

We were so excited to get our family DNA results. Then they came: Western Europe. My family originated in Western Europe, really? Really? Western Europe? Not France, or Austria, or a region of (I repeat) WESTERN EUROPE? No! Western. Europe. Like we could not and have not narrowed it down ourselves, but NO! WESTERN EUROPE.

That's what you get for your money at ole Ancestry.com, a pronouncement that your white, western european family originated from somewhere in WESTERN EUROPE: Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Vatican City, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and others!

Our Native American ethnicity was called Swedish. Our French ethnicity was reportedly from different areas of France. Just cancel your credit card and have your bank dispute all charges. We have researched our Family Tree back to prior to the first settlers. Four Sisters and very different results. We all have Blue/Green eyes and very much look alike. Dont bother trying to get an explanation; life is much too short. We did have more luck with Family Tree DNA. So did our Brothers.

I've done three of the dna tests because I had a mystery to solve, and Ancestry is without a doubt the best. I am wondering if the people giving negative reviews didn't spend the time to find out what it offers. It's amazing and very much worth expanding your journey with the subscription. Once you attach all the stories, pictures, records, etc. to your ancestors you can unsubscribe if you want. But, if you want to continue on like I have, it is so worth it. If you need help there are free tutorials or you can call their 800 number. For the person who said it's crap because his grandfather was born in Greece and the dna didn't show that... he needs to get educated about his dna results... just because he was born in Greece doesn't mean his grandfather's ancestors were... lol.

Ancestry.com is a great tool if you love to see surprise charges in your account! They automatically renew your account and don't say a word:-)The monthly fee is 20$ for the very basic subscription, which I can't fathom because I certainly didn't see anything that was worth that price. Ancestry is makes you think its going to be some great service with their frilly ads that bombard every corner of the internet but really is just an over glorified and overpriced trend. There are many other resources that can be used to get double the information for half the price, and the day will come when ancestry will fall. Useless. Just a money maker. To top it all off, I called customer support at 10 pm. They say they are available until 11 pm. I couldn't get ahold of a representative because they said my estimated wait time was over 30 minutes. I know good and damn well their call volume was not that high at 10 o clock at night. Frauds. The least they could do is have semi competent customer support for the service you're paying out the $#*! for. If I could give less stars I would.

I was pretty active in my DNA search, read and responded to the community (since Ancestry offered NO FREE help) and this is a year out of my life I won't get back!
For a site that advertises high percentage connections, I am no closer to learning about my lineage than I was a year ago. I believe they are a business first and foremost, and their "help" is only for wealthy people with lots of time and money to buy Ancestry's lies and deceit. Shame on the Mormon church and their misrepresentations.

I'm kinda surprised at all the negative reviews. However, I can only speak from my experience which has been pleasant so far.

I managed to reconnect with many of my maternal grandfather's relatives and find out more information about my ancestors. My grandfather was born in 1915 and he was illegitimate. He never spoke much of his father's family so details have always been sketchy. He also died when I was pretty young. Thanks to Ancestry I now have a pretty good idea who his biological father was.

Ancestry decided to cancel my subscription today - was told it was due to a "system issue" and offered me a month free. I used PayPal for my subscription but they insist I need to give a credit card to get the month free! When I go in to adjust it back to PayPal, no PayPal option! They tell me I can't update back to PayPal until the free month expires. Sounds like a play to stop using PayPal to me! Their loss - I don't plan to renew at all when my month is up.