• Ancestry

Ancestry

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Overview

Ancestry has a rating of 1.4 stars from 631 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Ancestry most frequently mention customer service, free trial, and credit card problems. Ancestry ranks 61st among Genealogy sites.

  • Service
    168
  • Value
    165
  • Shipping
    71
  • Returns
    85
  • Quality
    149
Positive reviews (last 12 months): 7.7%
Positive
3
Neutral
1
Negative
35
41
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How would you rate Ancestry?
Top Positive Review

“Times change”

Des R.
6/6/24

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.

Top Critical Review

“They will charge you if you are not diligent.”

Greg K.
8/24/24

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.

Reviews (631)

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Reviews that mention popular keywords

customer service (92) credit card (60) dna test (61) family tree (70)
Thumbnail of user gkk2001
1 review
1 helpful vote
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August 24th, 2024

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.

Products used:
MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION.

Service
Value
Returns
Thumbnail of user marks7686
1 review
1 helpful vote
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August 13th, 2024

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.

Tip for consumers:
Do not use

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user jimm2961
1 review
1 helpful vote
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July 9th, 2024

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

Thumbnail of user mp797
1 review
2 helpful votes
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June 23rd, 2024

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.

Thumbnail of user desr9
3 reviews
0 helpful votes
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June 6th, 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.

Thumbnail of user mtinbklyn
1 review
1 helpful vote
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April 8th, 2024

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.

Tip for consumers:
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.

Products used:
Family History.

Service
Value
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user conniek10
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
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April 4th, 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.

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user ruthe866
1 review
4 helpful votes
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March 19th, 2024

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.

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user lisarnovichkova
1 review
0 helpful votes
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March 27th, 2024

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.

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Thumbnail of user noelw81
2 reviews
3 helpful votes
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February 24th, 2024

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.

Tip for consumers:
no

Products used:
ancestry program

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user joannat51
5 reviews
9 helpful votes
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February 18th, 2024

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!

Tip for consumers:
No, just don’t do business with or trust them!!

Products used:
None, after I saw how they don’t resolve problems! I don’t waste my time and energy on poorly run businesses like this one and you can bet the government is backing them and getting all of the publics data from them and that they are both using and selling everyone’s personal data they get!! Blackstone owns them and is connected to BlackRock which is who all government employee and the military have all of their ill gotten gains invested with, they are all a bunch of deceitful, dishonest,lawless, crooks who should all be in jail!!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user pbfclarke
1 review
3 helpful votes
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February 23rd, 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!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user cherrif8
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
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February 24th, 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!

Service
Thumbnail of user mystickyra
1 review
2 helpful votes
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January 14th, 2024

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!

Products used:
Ancestry Full Access

Thumbnail of user sophiab356
2 reviews
7 helpful votes
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December 29th, 2023

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

Tip for consumers:
The customer service is useless. Complain and they will just threaten to delete your account.

Products used:
Access over 30 billion US and International records on Ancestry, more than 8 billion articles with Newspapers.com™ Publisher Extra ®, and millions of additional military records from around the globe on Fold3®.

Service
Value
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user teresaberntsen
2 reviews
6 helpful votes
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October 9th, 2023
Verified purchase

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.

Thumbnail of user stephaniet1639
1 review
6 helpful votes
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October 1st, 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.

Products used:
Monthly membership on direct debit

Service
Value
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user joelj127
1 review
10 helpful votes
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July 26th, 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

Products used:
dna test

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user chuckb378
1 review
2 helpful votes
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January 3rd, 2024

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.

Products used:
Ancestry.com / Ancestry.org

Thumbnail of user ak368
3 reviews
24 helpful votes
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March 11th, 2023
Verified purchase

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.

Thumbnail of user robertm1004
16 reviews
101 helpful votes
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May 9th, 2020

Ancestry does what you'd expect. It finds the location(s) in the world that your previous generations come from and lived. My siblings match me so it is accurate. It only goes back 3-4 generations or so but it is supposed to get better as more people search.
Records were poor 100+ years ago so it's difficult to be specific.

Thumbnail of user brodiecsmith
1 review
1 helpful vote
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May 18th, 2023
Verified purchase

Bad service been trying to get a refund for the shipping and ancestry didn't do anything saying wait til tomorrow …. And what if it comes your not gonna refund me when I could have just did the regular shipping

Products used:
Still waiting to see if they will give me my money for the shipping back even tho they should already do it for it being late

Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user sharonw1880
1 review
3 helpful votes
  • Send Message
June 18th, 2022
Verified purchase

I use to love ancestry.com and have been a subscriber for many years but this is my last subscription renewal. Since the last OS update on Safari, I have been unable to open records that I access through the leaf clue on Family Tree Maker. I have contacted Ancestry.com and they told me to use Google Chrome. It is a lot more trouble research that way so I will not renew. I guess Ancestry does not care if they lose subscribers. The picture below shows what happens when I click on a document e.g. census record.

Tip for consumers:
Don't subscribe if you have Family Tree Maker and a Mac computer.

Products used:
Ancestry.com

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user ladydeniset
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
May 4th, 2022
Verified purchase

I've been using this site for years. There is something to be said about learning where you come from. I appreciate the newest updates and the ability to utilize outside sites to collaborate on findings. You are able to easily search for new people and edit ones you've already added.

Tip for consumers:
Take the 14 day trial. Be sure to set a timer otherwise you will loose track of time!

Products used:
Full service plan

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user tamaraj255
1 review
4 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 18th, 2023

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

Products used:
DNA kit

Service
Value
Shipping
Quality

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