Ancestry

I've subscribed to Ancestry since the beginning (around 1999)- when they had only a couple of census records and they were only partly indexed. I've been amazed at the whining and complaining I see from all of the one star posts. Like any other "contract" you need to read through the fine print and understand what you are agreeing to before signing, rather than skip the agreement part, click on "agree" then get angry.
We should be intelligent enough to know that all business change hands, and all businesses change policies. The only way to keep your data and documents secure is to have your own copy- whether that is a paper copy or an electronic file. That's what genealogy software on your computer is for. In fact, it's wise to keep a copy off site as well (a disk at a family member's house, for example) to protect you against a fire/flood, etc.
This site has the largest collection of vital records anywhere, conveniently located, available at all hours. I began doing genealogy when the only options were to write letters and visit archives. I can use Ancestry without having to drive somewhere or make appointments- or spend additional money to access a repository. Gas, parking fees, entrance fees, copy fees, and travel time are all hidden costs to doing genealogy research. I've spent as much as $50 for one record. It doesn't take long to add up. The price of Ancestry for one year is cheap for all that is available, and for the convenience, and for the opportunity to collaborate.
I love the hinting feature, where Ancestry searches for possible record matches when I'm not even online. I have plenty to check out every time I get on. I love that I can send/receive messages from others regarding research and individuals (corrections, additions, etc). I have made some wonderful connections with distant relatives that would never have happened without this site. It's great to collaborate with others! Doing so has unlocked many doors and expanded my research and knowledge.
It's not a perfect company (I haven't found any that are), and I've have disputes with them over the years. When I have had a serious disagreement, I call and talk to them- and keep talking to them until we find a resolution. Staying calm and reasonable and working together makes that possible. We have to do our part- read contracts, understand them, ask questions, understand the purpose of the website (find our ancestors, not find living classmates for example- one of the complaints I read), understand what records are available- they may not have records for the time period and area you need, etc. It doesn't mean the company is a "rip-off" just because you didn't do your part and understand what the "free trial" was or what records are available.

Waste of time, ridiculous incorrect database, info is wild west database added and changed by everyone who thinks they need to ad their Family tree to a website, incorrectly linking and misspelling themselves and then linking themselves to royal families. I tried it for a year, invested time to enter our family tree, tried to make it public, so anyone can see it, but the tree never was found by any search method, being logged in or logged out. It is impossible to ad titles in any shape or form, nevertheless they brag about being linked to historical databases, usually filled with only royal names... only!. For in the past only the wealthy people, usually blue blooded could afford to read and write and leave historical documents behind anyway. It is not fully PC nor Mac nor ipad nor iphone nor Android compatible really, there is always a glitch which makes one stop being able to use it. Always when one wants to ad info or correct info in the tree, thats when it happens that software glitch... Inviting family members to a tree never worked at all, the other party could never manage to follow the many steps to eventually access the tree. These Coders (that the guys who do the programming) should be all replaced with people who actually know what they are doing. At the end of the day, i have a tree there, which only myself can look at properly on my computer at home, none of my family members could ever access it from their computers at their homes, and add info and make the tree bigger. When i searched for more Ancestors, i ended up not finding accurate information, but was inundated with names which were incorrectly written up, birth and death dates were false, locations were false, one had to guess this must be one ancestor, but it turned out someone in nowhere country made this data up,... so forget finding your ancestors on this website, you will only find Junk info from illiterate people out there, and the historical databases the claim they have, are freely accessible only if you go there directly, but ancestry will charge you an arm and a leg for info coming from those libraries, if you want to access that info from within the ancestry website, info which turns out to be false almost 10 out of 10 times, when using ancestry.com website searches. Support is incompetent and never even speak your language... i wonder where they get money from, they should have gone bankrupt a long time ago... looking at that track record of the site and what it claims to be able to do, but it fails to do at the end of the day

I had a friend coming to visit so we ordered kits to take when she arrived. To make sure they would be here I paid $37.90 in express shipping for 2 kits to make sure they arrived on time. I received a confirming email that they would be here, then a second email they would arrive in 10-11 days (too late). Twice I replied to that email asking them to confirm express shipping. No reply either time. When they didn't arrive as scheduled I called and was advised they were shown as in my city and out for delivery - for 2 days. They escalated the case. That person said they could only log into UPS website but could not provide any additional information. I asked what she could do and she read me every box on the UPS screen. I advised that didn't help so she read the same boxes again. I asked if she could contact UPS and find out what is going on and that if they are in my city I would go pick them up. She advised she could not make outgoing calls. I suggested to her that she should provide me with the US tracking and phone numbers so I could call. UPS was able to confirm the package is lost. They have a tracer and won't resolve for 8 days. I asked them to at least let Ancestry know the package was lost so I could be refunded. I called Ancestry back the next day to make sure UPS had time to document the package was lost. I advised Ancestry I wanted a refund on the shipping. Ancestry says they have no control over the shipping company. I agree, but since they contracted the shipping and paid they shipping it is up to them to get that back from UPS, UPS is not refunding it to me. She had to refer it to a supervisor and Ancestry cannot refund the shipping. I suggested she discount the cost of my kit to offset half of the shipping to meet me halfway. Again they cannot do that. So I advised I would be cancelling the order and expecting a full refund and that I would go on no less than 6 sites to write a poor review. After all of that, she asked me to hold the line to take their survey. I asked if she was kidding because I would not give a good review. She said that was fine they are required to ask which means she was more concerned with them listening to her call and scoring her on asking the customer to provide a review than actually providing customer service.

Overall, Ancestry is supposed to have the best database if you want to find relatives - but it is not free (she did offer me a free month which I did not want). Other sites are less expensive, faster turnaround time to get your results and in some areas you can pick up the kits locally. Other sites also send information about your genetic health markers in addition to your heritage. I am trying them out today. I recommend everyone choose one of the others. I found a great website that does a comparison of various DNA companies. I cannot put the link in a review but do a quick search and see what the others have to offer - more for less with service!

Elizabeth C

In a separate review done earlier, I commented about Ancestry in general, since they moved to 'New' Ancestry. I will make one general comment now, that 'New' Ancestry continues to have lots of problems. It is a poor substitute to the product that was in place till last December.

Up to today I haven't have the technical difficulties others have had. But today I had a serious issue. I tried to use the online function to submit a Help request. Guess what: the online support submission form error'ed out twice, would not go through.

Reluctantly I called the customer support number. 22 minutes waiting, all the time listening to their commercials. Finally got the operator, who was pleasant enough, no use complaining a lot to her, she doesn't run the (pitiful) company. She though could not resolve my problem, a ticket had to be submitted to the developers. Who knows when my problem will be fixed. She did though get in a personal commercial seeing that my renewal was coming up, about how I could take advantage of other Ancestry offerings. The one I have has problems, and they want be to bite off more...

Ancestry does have great libraries of information. Never lose track though that they are a MARKETING COMPANY, selling stuff. Don't pay a lot of attention to the slick TV shows or the commercials, Ancestry doesn't care squat about you the customer and your family history. You are $$$ only to them.

UPDATE 6/22/2016

Customer Support is non-existent. If one sends an email to their Support email address, auto reply is provided with directions to fill ou an online form. IT DOESN'T WORK! Try calling their Support about a tree technical issue, get put on hold for up to 20 to 25 minutes, and then get an operator who doesn't know squat except to say that the problem will be submitted to the developers for investigation. AND THEN NOTHING WILL EVER HAPPEN, YOUR PROBLEM WILL NOT GET FIXED. Watch their TV show, watch their advertizing BUT DO NO BUY THEIR PRODUCTS!

I have researched my family history over the last 30 years so I know what it is like to actually do the legwork and locate birth, marriage and death records by looking them up on microfilm at the county court houses and libraries. If you want to truly research your family tree and create solid documentation with sourcing along the way, then Ancestry is what you want.

A note about DNA testing which I have also done on Ancestry. The DNA testing is really to be used as a supplemental type of data to help you work through roadblocks or find cousins and others that may be sources. Yes they have some nice charts and maps that show you geographically where you family came from and their migration path, but do not expect DNA to be the end all for genealogy research. I also am disheartened by people who rate Ancestry poorly because their DNA test came back to reveal that their parents lied to them. Come on people - you choose to take the test, the results and how you handle it is on you!

Ancestry shows you actual documents about your family so you can determine who is who for yourself. As far as the Ancestry trees created by others... they are only as good as the person who put them together. I do not view ancestry tree results for my research unless I have hit a stone cold brick wall and even then, I only use what I can prove with historical documentation.

The other thing that I think is so valuable about how Ancestry works is that every time you save information from a document to your tree, they are tracking the source information in the background and it is always there if you need to prove you are related to someone specific.

They have also done a really nice job helping us to merge new data with old information, make updates or edits. You get to see the old and the new and choose which facts or data you will use.

I have more than 7000 folks in my family tree and through ancestry I can prove that I am a daughter of the american revolution multiple times over, that I am also a 4th generation American, my ancestors fought in the Napoleonic wars, were shirttail relatives of the royal Stuart's of Scotland and were pioneer farmers in Iowa. I know the part my family played in history and I continue to learn more as Ancestry is digitizing and adding data from across the world as fast as they can get it done. Thank you Ancestry! -Rachel

Ancestry used to be a upstanding company Recently they have completely changed the entire format of the family research experience and even the way our personal family trees appear. Firstly I am and have been paying a yearly subscription rate to have complete access to all the records etc this program allowed me to place ancestors pictures where I want them. It was possible to add my photos and other media and attach them to certain census dates. With the new format all that is not possible. My family stories are my family stories. Ancestry has taken it upon themselves to insert certain stories and or media that pertains to a certain era in which my personal ancestor was living. I didn't give them permission to make these stupid changes and if I choose to research what was occurring in the world when a specific ancestor was living I w I'll do the research and add it! They need to stop messing with people's family trees. They have also. Hanged the color to a horrid grY that after about ten minutes of reading my eyes are so weary. This color is bad and can't be good for the eyes. This new site is cumbersome and difficult to navigate and not user friendly again I didn't pay for this. I paid for the old classic ancestry. All the joy has been taken from family research. I am ready to quit. When I personally have let ancestry know about things that I didn't like... I was told all I do is whine and don't explain what I didn't like. I have numerous times and I was told if I don't like it I can leave! Well that is not good business! Who tells customers to go away? There are many people that are working for and spokespersons for ancestry who are haughty and hateful, self righteous non helpful people! They certainly have no work ethics. In fact my opinion is ancestry has lost all good ethics and are only interested in becoming a bigger money grubbing corporation! I used to tell anyone I talked to how wonderful this company was no more though. I would NOT recommend ancestry to anyone -- they don't care about furthering family research they have another agenda. They are not listening to their customers who are serious researchers. We want the classic. It works! They should at least give those people who want classic the choice instead of forcing the new on us!

There is a cancellation link in your account, but it has not worked for me in the last 3 years. It goes into a continual online thinking process.
When you subscribe, there is no choice but to take a subscription that auto renews.
I like to take a 6-month subscription during the winter months when I am most likely to research. I carefully calendar my subscription expiry date to alert 72 hours before the expiry date (based on my own and other peoples previous experience).
My current World Heritage subscription has just expired and despite me attempting to cancel online numerous times, and despite my contacting them via an online email link, they still took my money. I have since received the following (partial email) response:
"Thank you for contacting Ancestry in regard to trying to cancel your subscription.
We are sorry to hear you no longer wish to continue with your membership and we hope you have enjoyed your time with us. Your subscription has been cancelled immediately and you will have no further billing from Ancestry. Since you contacted us before it renewed, I was also able to give you a full refund. We have issued a refund of $249.99 AUD to the account that was billed originally. It can take up to 10 business days for your financial institution to post this amount to your account".
I will now need to wait up to 10 days to see whether I will receive a refund.
The refund is not why I am writing this review. This has happened to me before and to several family members and acquaintances. I have helped several people to contact Ancestry Support for their refunds. The customer support process is difficult to negotiate and, in my opinion, deliberately designed as a deterrent to cancelling.
I think that most ancestry users are likely to be 60+ years of age.
Before you purchase, I would like you to think how many people out there that have auto renewing subscriptions and lack the knowledge or will to do so.
Ancestry has poor reviews compared to other ancestry sites. Reading through other people's reviews, I concluded that most positive reviews are from newer users who are enamoured with discovering their heritage and new family members. When you read the negative reviews, you will discover users who struggle for ancestry support, subscription issue etc.
If you read Trustpilot reviews, you will see that in most cases a carefully conscripted response that points the blame back at you. Will I get one?
Next winter I will purchase a MyHeritage subscription.
A message for Ancestry:
Your response to reviews tells me you are not listening to your customer base.
Overhaul your online customer support process and make it user friendly. In my case, I just wanted the online cancellation link to work as it should and confirmation that process worked.

I was given an Ancestry DNA kit as a Christmas gift in December of 2018. As instructed in the directions, I registered the kit on an account I opened and mailed the kit in the first week in January 2019.

I never heard back about the progress or receipt by Ancestry so I call them on 2/6/19. I spoke to a customer service rep named Matt. After a half hour of fumbling and lack of knowledge, Matt finally located the kit number I provided. He told me that Ancestry personnel had entered my email address incorrectly on his end. He said it was an error on their part and could not be corrected because of the way their program was designed. So he said he would mail me a new kit. We doubled checked the shipping information to
Make sure they had the correct name and address.

On 2/11/19, not having received the kit, I called again and spoke to Brenda. She told me it would take 7 to 10 days to receive it. I gave her the original kit number and asked her to check the date Matt mailed it out. As before, after about 30 minutes of being put on hold and fumbling back and forth, she told me she couldn't find any record of it being sent. Once again I gave her all the shipping information and she said she would send out a replacement kit that same day.

On 2/25/19, guess what. Still no kit received. I called again and spoke to Crystal. Another 30 minutes or so, after explaining everything again, Crystal told me they had no record of a kit being sent to me. I asked to speak to a supervisor. Crystal balked, but put me on hold until one was available. Another 15 minutes went by and Crystal was back telling me the
Supervisor was still busy, but she would send another kit out. We carefully went over the shipping details. She said it would be shipping that day and after waiting another 5 to 10 minutes she provided me a confirmation number.

Today is 3/11/19. Yup you are correct, still no kit. I called again today hoping I would be able to talk to a supervisor. The recording said there would be at least a 30 minute wait to speak to a customer rep. I had other things to do.

By the way, I gave all this information to Ancestry in an email survey. Gave them 1 star saying I would never recommend them to a friend. The automated survey responded to the 1 star and asked why. I explained it and have never heard back from them. Same zero response from an email I sent through their website to customer service.

First of all, Ancestry.com lets everybody make their own family tree, so looking for the profile of an ancestor is confusing because there will be about 1000 or more profiles for one person, often all with conflicting information. Stupid. Also, it does not require you to PROVE with real documentation the links between relations, so over the past 20 years "clickophiles," as real geneologists like to call them, have made up the worst, most convoluted, mixed up family trees. Example: Say your 3rd great-grandfather was named "John Sitejabber" and he was born in Tennessee in 1836. Well, Turns out, there are 500 other "John Sitejabbers" with the same info, but over time the "clickophiles" have listed yours with 7 wives and 23 children. You know good and well your family stayed in Tennessee and didn't join the false prophecy cult of mormonism, so now you're confused AF. Oh look! He had three daughters named Elizabeth born in 1856, 1860, and one born in 1922! My goodness! Four sons named John boorn in 1839! Two of his wives had children when they were just 6 years old! Another when she was 80!

Seriously. Ancestry.com is F***** up. If you really want to know who your ancestors were, you are going to have to comb every record available for each one to prove relationships to others. DO NOT JOIN ANCESTRY! DO NOT TRUST ANCESTRY!
Besides, if you join, you'll be paying money to the mormon cult. They want to wait until you die and "offer" you (and your ancestors) up to the mormon gods or something. Lol. Oh and don't give them your DNA. FFS do not give ancestry.com your DNA.

Wikitree is where it's at. Don't forget to prove relations.

Looked at it 1 time and could not get out of it before being charged for a month and a $25 cancellation fee. AVOID AT ALL COST

I love it. This will be the next biggest search engine. A search engine of people dead or alive.

I purchased the Family Tree Maker Program 1 when it first came out. Did what I could with it, then when Ancestry linked to FTM I bought it and have had it since, the full World Subscription. Have had a lot of success until 6 1/2 months ago. In trying to research a certain family connection, I ended up with over ******* people in my "tree" and the program started to work funny. Contacted Ancestry. The nice Man/Rep said I had problems because the program was not set up for that vast a number of people. Suggestions: I had 2 trees going, All My Family & Searching for Adam and Eve. Searching etc was the large collection. He suggested that I create a new tree, Searching for Adam and Eve, move over only the people I wanted to keep and then he helped me "delete" the Big Searching etc & All My family. Since that time I started to get hints/leaves on more than 50% of my people. When activating the hint it referred to my one or two Old trees, ie Searching etc and/or All My Family, sometimes one sometimes both. The message I got was that the tree was not available... please recheck later. So that continued until Jan. I called Ancestry many times, and never could get help. Just try this try that, which had already been done, then "I'm emailing you a link for you to try." Nothing ever changed until Jan 2014. I continued to get the same hints, but now they did not reference my old trees, they just said this tree is not available... try again later. Calls since then have been wasted. I keep getting told that things would change with the next update. Spent 2 hours with s lady 2 weeks ago, she said it was my computer. That cannot be, because I have a "cousin" that shares much of the same family with me. We can go thru her leaves and they are the same as mine with the same message, which she too has been getting since October. I even put a complaint on Facebook, I got a reply to contact them thru FB message, not on the home page. I did this and have "chatted" back and forth several times, no help, then they just started ignoring me. Last info I got form that was that they did an update late March... nothing has changed. Again I have to say, I have been paying the $300 something for the World Subscription for several years. You would think someone there would think I am worth something. I want to add that I spoke to one man for over an hour, he said he would have a programmer call me, right that never happened. Folks I talk to at ancestry keep saying they are not seeing the leaves I see. I went thru all my people with last name of A, I have 220 names, 60 of them had the bad hint. On the "B" people I have 493 and 227 have the bad hints. I have explained this to them, and have gotten not response other then that they have so many files that it takes time to update, be patient. Don't you thaink 6 1/2 months is patient enough?

All for the turkish propaganda dont do the test fake results. GREEKS DONT DO IT ESPECIALLY CYPRIOTS!

Publishes my personal information without permission.

Greatest genealogy database. They are always adding new databases to search for ancestry records.

Ancestry.com has very extensive database and was pretty cool to use!

We have enjoyed this site tremendously. So interesting.

LOL... i had a good experience from this website... u can check who ur related to

Removes funds from account without permission and will not give a refund!