Ancestry

I joined today and got nothing! Then to cancel it, it was 35 bucks! They got me but I can't get them back so beware!

Ancestry.com is one of the most useful genealogy paysites. I have the full membership which gives me access to every record they have. Since I am based in Europe, the annual charge is 199 Euro, which is a bit pricey. They do not have nearly as many original records for European countries as they have for the US, though. As a European, Ancestry.com will be most useful if you have American relatives and you want to research the branches of your family tree on the other side of the Atlantic. I would estimate that on average, I am able to find about 5-10 original records for every American in my family tree (depending of course on how long a person lived). Ancestry.com add tons of data every month, so the site is worth re-visiting over and over. Lately, they added city directories for most of the places I am interested in.

The interface to view original record images has been "updated" recently. Not a good idea, since it uses flash and crashes quite regularly on Firefox. You can still choose the older interface under the "Options" tab, which will perfectly do the job.

The search interface could be more sophisticated, but it allows for wildcards (not a given on many other sites). If you complain about too many irrelevant search results, simply use "exact" search or give more detailed information on the person you are looking for.

One con I would mention is the questionable quality of many user-submitted family trees. But you cannot really blame Ancestry.com for being so popular that they attract a lot of - let's say, not very diligent "researchers". The problem with the global village are the village idiots, as they say...

If I could give it a no star I would. They are so $#*!ty with customer service that I would be ashamed to run a business this way.

After my mother received hers, I signed up with Ancestry.com about nine years ago to find out about my DNA results. Hers showed that she was 63% of UNKNOWN parts of Asia, 25% European. Smaller percentages showed North American and African. When I received my DNA test results, it showed that I was 53% African, 23% European, Russian/ Jewish, and Native American. I logged in to Ancestry.com today and discovered that I am now 78% African, 20% European, and the rest is BS! I HAVE NO JEWISH BLOOD, AND I AM NO LONGER POLYNESIAN! Ancestry.com SENDS EMAILS TO TELL YOU THEY HAVE MADE UPDATES TO YOUR DNA. WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS FABRICATING A LIE! MY MOTHER DID NOT KNOW SHE WAS ASIAN, BUT THEN A RUSSIAN JEW MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE MISSING LINK TO HER UNKNOWN REGIONS. SHE KNEW SHE WAS IRISH!

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE A WHITE PARENT, A BLACK PARENT, AND 9 YEARS LATER, RESULTS DETECT BOTH PARENTS ARE PRACTICALLY BLACK? THEREFORE I AM NOW 78% BLACK? MY MOTHER'S IRISH AND RUSSIAN JEWISH LINAGE DOESN'T EXIST?! PLEASE DO NOT SEND YOUR DNA TO THIS COMPANY! THEY WILL CHANGE YOUR RESULTS WHENEVER THEY WANT!

A year after I cancelled, I noticed a new charge on my credit card.
Finding a customer service number is very hard.
Weight times are very long.

OK service but the bait and switch billing system is almost impossible to manage. Refunds are rare and overseas agents are paid to refuse to refund.

A waste of money. The dna test is like everyone else's but you get no services unless you pay $25 a month! It's the definition of awful money grab.

I have been a member of Ancestry for many, many years now. When I first started as a member, the site was great and always flew really fast no matter what time of the day. Since they started their television show and have had so many people try it out, it has gotten agonizingly, frustratingly slow during peak times. I also have weird results come up on the search feature, but have learned to use "suggested hints" a lot. Those are usually very valid, although even they occasionally freak out.

One thing I'm not overly happy about is that the price keeps climbing. With so many additional members, one would think that the price would go down. But then I have to remember supply and demand...

Overall the site is really easy to use and has been very valuable to me in my family research. I did notice that once the television series started, results from other members trees became highly questionable as many of the two-weekers (as I call them) just copied and pasted a lot of garbage. I do wish Ancestry would delete the trees of the two-weekers as those are not serious genealogists like so many of the rest of us that have been using and paying for the use of the site are.

Just a note on upgrading to a world subscription: read the directions on cancelling this. You must fully cancel your account online, and if you want to go back to just a United States subscription, you then have to call customer service to have your account reinstated with just a United States subscription. Yes, it's a pain, but those are the rules.

I do not belong to the LDS, nor do I work for Ancestry. I'm just a user who realizes the value that they are providing, although I wish the site was faster.

Leslie Q

Ridiculous website that is beyond all measure of confusion. There is no way to make your way out of this labyrinth of blood ties and lies.

They sign you up for auto renewal and take your money as long as they can. Use them at your own risk.

There is a girl claiming to be my niece and she is dressing me out she looks nothing like my brother she has no proof my brother is her father

They have lots of information on long ago people that may be related to you and information for you to decide if it is relevant to you.

NO customer service. Have been trying to reach someone for a week.
THERE is ZERO customer service. Just cancelled

Almost nonexistent information data on Italy and Argentina. The help is worthless. I wasted a lot of hours for nothing.

You pretty much have to know everything about your family tree already, the records provided are of very little help.

Web site sucks big time, their main (only?) concern is to keep you from sharing info with anybody else

A total ripoff. My wife surprised me with a $59 Father's Day present. I come from a dozen areas in Europe. $59 for this. WTH.

The way the site works is that you have to pay an up front annual amount, but the wording on their web site indicates you can cancel at a later date and still receive a refund.
The site is deceptive as it does not make clear the fact that you will not receive a refund if you don't cancel within the very short period from the time of taking out the subscription. It does not clearly state that you will not receive a refund if you pay the annual amount and you cancel after two months for example.
I was hoping to find old class mates. Out of twenty searches, using name and age it found not one. Even those who had passed away, three former students, not one was found. It was totally useless.
Having paid $215 it was a complete waste of money and very disappointing as a search tool.
I contacted them and even though they would know I used the site in a very limited fashion, and it also failed to deliver, they would not offer any refund at all. This web site is based in typical American aka Microsoft greed style of taking peoples money deceptively, and is happy to receive $215 for about 2 hours use of their data base. $215 allows you to use the site for 24 hours a day for 365 days. I used it for 2 hours. If you rang a small business in Australia for a refund under similar circumstances you'd probably get it. Having had previous experience in business with American companies it is no wonder "the world hates America" - it's been ripping the rest of us off forever and it does not care.
See also post 20/09/2011 by Don at http://www.geneabloggers.com/ancestrycom-scam-common-misperceptions/

"I am an Ancestry subscriber and I love it, but I think what they're doing with the monthly/yearly business is pretty sleazy and really hurts their reputation."

I'd like to provide some feedback about ancestry.com free trial in the hopes that you'll be able to prevent someone else from getting caught in their trap. Their free trial, which I canceled after 5 days, ended up charging me for 4 months and it took several phone calls and two online cancellations and I'm still not even sure if it's canceled. This is a horrible process from start to finish and it took me 30 minutes just to get to the part where I could cancel it which I was on hold because I started to call them to cancel and I figured while I was on hold I would see if I could find any information online and cancel again... which coincidentally, the second I got to the cancellation site online after navigating a few dozen pages, they answer the phone and then she proceeds to tell me that you're unable to cancel it online although I just hit the cancel button and it said I was canceled!? She's like, the only way you can cancel is through a call, so I asked her which was it? She had literally just told me the only way to cancel was through a phone call and then she said I was already canceled which didn't make any sense because I did that after 5 days of the free trial so I should have never been charged, And then they had the audacity to ask me if I'd like to continue my membership that I had just furiously ranted to her about and wanted a refund for... Wtf? This was only supposed to be a free trial and I got roped into 4 months worth of payments and finally she puts me on hold again and after several minutes, (I assumed she spoke to a supervisor) she gets back on and says she's willing to make a one time exception to give me my last month's money back which if it doesn't come back to my account this month within the week I'll be canceling my card so they'll no longer have valid information for me. Sorry for the length sorry if there's any typos because I used talk to text but I just want the information to be out there that it's a trap pretty much and you really got to read those terms of service. And if you do decide to try it just call the first time to cancel.

VERY disappointed that I can't add photos easily. Every time I try to do this, I get a "time out" message

I cancelled with them and they have deactivated it and charged me 4 months until I realised, don't trust them.

Ancestry consistently downloads the DNA matches in the middle of a work day for genealogists in the U.S. What idiots!

I've had a lot of problems since signing up for a subscription, but nothing like what others have experienced. I did the Free 2-week Trial, but called about half way through to see if they had any promotional offers. I was told there was going to be a special offer Memorial Day Weekend for 1-month of All Access for $31, and all I had to do was wait for the email. Well, an email never came so the day I was told the offer would expire I called. One of the few times I got someone who was actually nice, and helpful. It turned out the offer was actually 6-months of All Access for $99, and a better deal! So I told the woman to sign me up. It wasn't until my free trial was cancelled that it was discovered I didn't qualify, and the remaining time on my trial couldn't be added back. So I asked if a supervisor could put the offer through since I had been told I qualified, and before I knew it a supervisor did just that.

Unfortunately, from that day forward I experienced constant website issues. At that time ThruLines hadn't worked since day one, and my tree met all requirements. But everyday was a new problem which they of course started blaming my computer, browser and/or internet. I admit I got nasty with them on more than one occasion because I was fed up with their lies, and making excuses. Things now seem to be in working order, at least for the moment. I was given a total of 7-months additional All Access to make up for the hassles, and the half of my subscription which was wasted due to their website issues.

In the end they are a company you have to stay on top of constantly, and more often than not you will have to argue with them. I know at least half the people I talked to didn't even have basic knowledge of how the website worked, and definitely should not have been hired for their positions.