AncestryReviews 637

I started dabbling a few years ago, and Ancestry.com provided a decent amount of info for the United States, including newspaper articles. Now, it is just awful. About 2 week ago, I thought I would start up again, and I am extremely disappointed! Everything I had saved to my family tree was gone was gone, and you can't get it back! Plus you now have to pay for newspaper articles, etc., which was formerly included. In a nutshell, you pay more and get less! I'm going to look elsewhere. This is a huge rip off!

Greetings: I am heartsick. I have been building my tree and my husbands in Ancestry.com for years, and have done the DNA as well. Last week, I noted that I was unable to see most of the hundred or so relatives in my husband's tree. It turns out it is gone. The very poor customer service agent "was sorry to inform me" that all of that work is irretrievably lost. She also could have "cared less". I am cancelling my subscription and I will find a more sound way to collect and store that valuable data. If you are using this site, beware!

I am now in the process of making sure all is well on my Family Tree Maker before I dump Ancestry.com. I absolutely hate the new format. I find it cluttered and a b*@*%*h to work with. I hate to do this because I have been able to make contact with other distant family members, and if I drop ancestry, that opportunity will be gone. Now it is no longer easy to write comments, find comments, find stories, or follow-up leads. It took me twice as long today to do what I normally did in terms of research. Who was the idiot that decided this new format would be better!?!?!?

PROS: Easy to do - great instructions. Turn around time was much earlier than anticipated. Easy to read and understand results.

CONS: It only pinpoints areas from where you may have descended, which can show the results of a mutt. How can I possibly be 10-12 nationalities? Yes, some were trace amounts, but it didn't identify those areas accurately. European areas include several countries of origin, so out of the 54%, how much was Luxemberg? Get the idea?

VERY CON: I am at least 25% Native American Indian (and that's a low calculation on my part). It is confirmed that my grandfather is 1/2 Indian, one grandmother has some Indian, and another more than 1/2 Indian. So how is it that I'm ZERO PERCENT Native American Indian? Same thing happened with my in-law's. It showed 0% Indian when they have at the very least trace amounts.

CONCLUSION: What I knew to be true was mostly confirmed (54% European). But I wanted to know how much NA Indian I was and that didn't pan out. I WISH I HADN'T WASTED MY MONEY.

Mormons own this site and because of their religious beliefs (and completely ignorant to yours) they proxy baptize the dead (e.g. Your relatives). My parents know people who get paid to act as stand ins to be baptized. Hope you like your Protestant aunt or Jewish uncle having Mormon rites metaphorically performed on them.
I hate when the religious take over sites/businesses and make it all about what THEY do. Seriously, I'm an atheist and don't want any of their mumbo jumbo around my relatives.

The 'New Ancestry' stinks! Countless thousands have petitioned to get the Classic version back! And don't tell us you can't do that, because you CAN if you want to-instead of IGNORING us! Family Tree Maker went down the drain for the same reason and other and better programs bit you in the butt! The same will now happen to Ancestry.com- WHY have you done this?! You must have a death wish-and are surely going to get it! Dec 15,2015: the day Ancestry.com died!

I have much of my family's historical information and had been on ancestry.com looking up more. I ran in to a roadblock so decided to use their "professional" genealogy services to hopefully complete my family tree (at least until it could give me information on my German ancestors). I paid over $3000. 00 to have them do this research for me. I emailed JC Bossone the family tree that had been handwritten by my great aunt as well as info my parents had given me. He told me it might take a while but they would try to trace my ancestors to Germany (or wherever they are from if the records indicated something else). Understandable, right? Well, I eventually received an email that my tree was complete and I would be receiving my booklet soon. I excitedly went online and was dismayed that there wasn't any new information. I got my booklet and it had all of the information I had given them and copies of a couple of papers my great great grandmother had signed for a pension for my great great grandfather from the civil war. Well, I already had these (you can get them free online from a civil war database). It had absolutely NO additional information and actually contained LESS info than I already had. I emailed JC and he replied telling me that they have to verify information before they move on. Verify what? I gave them all of the info so if they took five minutes (as long as it took me) they could have verified all of the info. That's what I got for $3000. 00... What a joke!

Have you ever heard the phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it? I guess you haven't as you have totally destroyed it by this new format you claim is much simpler. I also have a nice bridge I can sell you in San Francisco? How 'bout it?
The new format takes 3 pages to read, when the old had 1 page and everything was on that page that contained all the information. Even the new format doesn't have as much info as the old one. Also, who gave them permission to add their idea of what went on in those days by adding pictures they have chosen to my personal pages.? Also, they stole pictures from my personal pictures file and put them on the wrong pages. I am seriously thinking about finding another ancestry web site that isn't so intrusive You are going to lose a lot of customers if you don't go back to the old format. Including me!

I've spent 20 years doing research. In the last few years I've decided to move a good portion of my research onto Ancestry rather than use FTM on my desktop. More for the security side of it. If my Computer gets stolen I'll still have the bulk of it online and safe. Turns out the theft has occurred on-line! Hate the new format where my layout of records has been hijacked and changed. Now seriously looking for an alternative. I see advertising for Ancestry on TV every second night. I wouldn't recommended it to a garden worm at the moment. So much for looking after the loyal users.

My wife and I both ordered tests at the same time. We received the kit within a few days. Took the test and sent it back the next day. Looks like mine got lost in the mail, after 9 days and still no word I called them, they offered to send me another one but ask if I could wait another day, I agreed (DO NOT DO THIS ASK FOR IT) I should have ask for the replacement right away, After a few days I called back, now they tell me I have to wait 20 days. I check their return policy I can only get half of my money back after the ten days, none after 30 days so this is beginning to look like a scam to me, wish I had gone to another company

I have had a subscription for more than 20 years. Ancestry has degraded their once fantastic product to the lowest of the low... I have survived their upgrades with little effort in the past, but this is the worst abortion ( and saddens me that Ancestry is not recognizing the frustration and anger of their customers, nor is it responding to their comments (have the Lobbyists bought you also?)). I feel duped by a company I once had stock in... Thank God I got out before you screwed it up...

The New Ancestry is horrible... Not user friendly... A cluttered mess. Hard to find things... Color is hard on the eyes. Most things aren't working... The classic site was simple. Clean... color was easy on the eyes... easy to find things... I would not recommend this to anyone right now it's a mess... I.ve been a member for 14 years with no complaints. This is unacceptable for the price I pay... I'm thinking of not renewing my membership...

Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! I have had about 6 weeks email correspondence with a range of different people at Ancestry about just one problem on the Life Story page. They either can not or deliberately will not understand what I am trying to tell them. They treat me as if I am stupid and end every email with "Have a lovely day" which just rubs salt in to the wound.
Just discovered that they have put a map of Andorra on my own page which I can't remove. I have lived in England all my life and have never even visited Andorra. They also insist that Peterborough is in Northamptonshire. It is in Cambridgeshire and when I correct it they change it back to the wrong county. I would leave but I have invested many years in my tree and I don't want to abandon it. Any ideas to stop them getting any more of my money?

Why did they change? Old Ancestry was great. Nothing about the new one works! The new colors make it so much harder to see things - grey on grey? Everything is taking longer to upload. One click functions from the old version now require several. Photos on life events are too tiny. And the cutesy blue for boy ancestors and pink for girl ancestors is just a pain, as is the annoying pop up informing me I've just saved something to my tree when I push the save button. I used to happily spend 2-3 hours daily working on my tree. Now I'm so aggravated after 20 mins, I just shut it off. Seriously considering dropping my membership I've been a member for a long time, but the new version is awful

Is there any hope for going back to the original format? It is so disheartening to have this new format change that is unbelievably and completely worse than the original! There is not one thing about the new format that is an improvement and the overall visual look, let alone all the extra information planted on the page, is absolutely ugly, hard to read and makes it difficult to see the main and important facts/events and relate to your ancestor's life... there was nothing wrong with the "old" version!