AncestryReviews 637

I signed up for it just to help a really nice customer service representative from another company knowing I was going to cancel it immediately. It took me 3 weeks calling every other day. It was impossible to get to someone to cancel. I spent hours and hours trying to cancel this "subscription ". They only answered after the free period ended. I never review anything bad unless it's really bad. I spent weeks trying to resolve this and they said tough. No refund. I was adamant the whole time... every day. I think. This company is a horrible sham. $100. Down the tubes

I am disappointed by my gift of ancestry.com. First, they are claiming copyright of all data they have taken from most other historical sites on the web and elsewhere, as if it was their own! Initially, they listed the primary sources. Now they only list themselves as original sources. Second, there are so many mistakes in data they have transcribed from other original sources, that I am unable to depend on any information they provide. Third, they aren't focusing on church records, only the census records.

I set the date on my calendar and got online to cancel a FREE trial before it ended having already paid $99 for a DNA kit. When I noted that Ancestry.com automatically billed my credit card twice ($19.99 x 2), I called customer service and politely explained the situation. She said she believed me, but it is the policy of Ancestry.com NOT to refund customer's money so there was nothing she could do other than cancel my subscription AGAIN. I've since read Ancestry.com reviews and found, based on other customers' experiences, this really is their policy. I also now have reason to doubt the results of my Ancestry DNA test. Ancestry.com should be investigated for fraud.

This troubles me. I have been a steady member of Ancestry since 2009. I have since quit my full year subscription because of misleading advertisements. They treat you like a horse where they dangle the carrot just out of reach so that you can buy another product from them. Case in point is after you join you will get an email saying there are clues or "hints". When you clik their hints link it brings you to their join ancestry page and the link stops there. This happens every time.
I have over combined 3000 people in 5 different trees there. I am presently downloading them in a GEDCOM form to up load to another program.
SO... I get a "special " price on Ancestry "All Access" which includes Newspapers.com and Fold3. I didnt find out until after I ordered the 6mos subscription that it was only a "basic" membership to these and that you had to ad another 30.00 to access that. I had Newspapers.com years ago and let me assure you... they are useless too. Fast forward from ancestryto present day and I get a notice that there is a DNA match... How can there be a match when I never submitted a DNA sample?
BUYER BEWARE! They are all full of hidden charges you dont get to see until you join just once. Their customer service SUCKS! Should be able to clear things up with a simple email but they want you to hang on hold for 2 hrs hoping you will forget what you called for

Ordered 2 DNA kits and received them. Charged $88.95 each. Got results 6 weeks later which I am suspicious of. From day of order, emails flooded account with advertising and more advertising. Blocked them. 2 weeks later they charged me another $149.00. Saw it on my year end statement analysis and called them yesterday... 2 calls 30 minute wait time. Jerrod told me he could not help me and kept saying and reading scripted nonsensical answers... I escalated, he put me on hold, came back said he was Shawn the supervisor BUT IT WAS THE SAME REP. Saying the same nonsensical things. Told him I wanted a supervisor who could rectify my problem and Shawn said there wasn't one. They were supposed to call or email me with resolution about a credit yesterday... no word. They engage in deceptive automatic billing practices for subscriptions that you never wanted or knew about. This company needs to be stopped. I only wish I had been recording the convo cuz it would be viral today... beyond stupidity.

I received $169 subscription for Christmas. Not only did I get an email before Christmas ruining the surprise, I tried to cancel it WITHOUT accessing my account, I called their toll-free to cancel. The barely English-speaking customer rep couldn't find my account because he could not understand English, then three times he insisted the account was accessed and used for research! It never was! After arguing with him for 20 minutes, he finally agreed to refund the $169. In case any of you didn't know this, their site provides information if you are requesting U.S. heritage. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR EUROPEAN HERITAGE. Being first generation European, they cannot provide reliable, or even basic, family information. Very disappointed with ancestry.com

Lotsa ads, BUT no info on pre-use habits of ingestion, $25/kit non-refunded & % of fees also NOT refunded...

BOTTOM LINE: I would NOT have bought had they indicated 50% non-refunded fees if found to be unsatisfactory...

MY BAD - shoulda read these hundreds of replies on several websites like this, Consumer Affairs & pissedoffconsumer.com

I ordered two DNA tests as a gift 12 hours ago for family members. This morning I called to cancel. They will only offer a partial refund less $25 for each test plus shipping. They are charging me for shipping costs and they haven't even shipped yet. Bottom line, I paid $198 and am only getting $128 refunded. In other words, I canceled within 12 hours, and am paying $70 for nothing.

BTW, it doesn't appear that you can cancel online. Ancestry makes it difficult to cancel. You have to call them, be placed on hold, and then Ancestry tries to talk you into not canceling.

The Ancestry representative was all smarmy and giving a bunch of corporate BS on the phone too. "Yes, we know that we haven't shipped anything yet and that you placed this order 12 hours ago, but we still only can offer a partial refund. That's our company policy and it's unilateral."

It's my company policy not to deal with Ancestry ever again. I suggest you do the same. Ugh.

When Ancestry first started it was a good site but in the past couple of years it has gone down hill very quickly. Searches are a mess you can never find what you want without going through dozens of pages. Their hints are often duplicated and / or completely irrelevant. The site is plagued with error messages. If you subscribe and download documents like BMD records or census's you cant only view the originals whilst you are still a member, you pay money for the use of these documents then they hold you to ransom to keep viewing them. The membership fee's are more than most other sites but the service is less. Stay away.

Although I only had the free trial, it seemed like a very deep and informational program as long as you already know some basic info on your relatives. I had forgotten to cancel my free trial, and after two weeks I was billed at full price for the service. I did not want this so I emailed the company and within an hour they responded to me and gave me a full refund. Some of the best customer service I have ever seen. No hassles or complaints.

As much as I hate paper records, you must back up your trees. Ancestry does not! At some point during this past year, my trees have become corrupted, and Ancestry can do nothing. I have to go back and recreate hundreds and hundreds of records. I talked to their customer support and they cannot help me. I have been a member since the 1990's and have never had a problem until now. So learn from me... print everything as your own safety net.

I used both Ancestry and My Heritage for the last two years and both I have now cancelled as they are both expensive and of little direct use to me with respect to searching BMD Records as my Family History is situated around Central Scotland. Effectively I have been paying a lot of money to use the Family Tree Charts layout which I can either us a Spreadsheet program or a free Family Tree application to do the same thing.
The only down side now in some ways is not having links to other Worldwide members who might have information that I have not yet found. But as a Senior citizen I can no longer justify the high price of these two applications on a hobby. Thank you Technoplod.

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

I don't understand many of the negative reviews. My DNA testing was spot on, based on following my ancestors back for 10 or more generations on Ancestry. I was offered the chance to upgrade my membership and they refunded the difference between the original and the updated memberships. Yes, there are times the Ancestry system jams up. What big website doesn't jam? Ever try to order something on Amazon? I, personally, am totally satisfied with Ancestry.com, despite the rare glitches in the system.

For weeks Ancestry has been saving my downloads to the wrong tree. Now it will not allow me to enter a story in the gallery. There are many problems, but the biggest problem is that Ancestry Support is nearly useless. Their usual pat answer is that "It is not Ancestry, it must be your server". It is NOT my server! My work productivity is reduced by nearly %50 as I try to navigate this miserable system. The program itself is great - when it works. It has too many problems that either don't get fixed or are ignored. Ancestry has no respect for its members. I wouldn't recommend it.

I got back DNA results that linked me to a religion, which is impossible to tell from DNA. I questioned them and they said it was just that I had similar traits to an area that was generally in line with those of a religious group from that area. Now, first of all, the area covered about 6 countries or so. In itself, that made it useless. What they came up with could have been told to me by a charlatan palm reader with good observational skills. This was the Ancestry DNA test. By the way, through their site, they charge you $10 for shipping. For that you get regular mail on an item that would, at worst, cost $3 to ship. That while not unusual for a company to do, should have been a red flag about their ethics.