AncestryReviews 637

They will not go back until they are hit in the pocketbook. They obviously think that this new/terrible format will in some way attract new membership... and made a business decision based on bad advice. Soon they will see what a huge mistake they made. Two terrible business decisions in one week. This is indeed cost them. Ancestry.com run as fast as you can back to your old format or risk huge losses in revenue. Take a wait and see attitude and you will find you will never recover from this. A long time member who will not renew!

Ancestry has changed to a "new format" effective 12/15/15. On any given day some function no longer works. For example yesterday it wouldn't calculate relationships. Today it says I "match 17 trees" but none will load. The help forum keeps saying "clear your cache" or "refresh" or "try another browser, cause forefox won't work". All I know is, it used to work on my computer, now they expect me to be some sort of computer whizz to use their site. My analysis: it no longer works!

Was looking forward to doing a lot of research over the holidays, now I am stuck with trying to learn an "updated" product that is noticeably worse, more time-consuming, less intuitive, harder to read, and just plain ugly. Very, very frustrating. What direction is this company going in? Looks like the marketing people and graphics designers have taken over, to the detriment of usability and serious research. I don't give a d*mn if the displays don't look cool on a smart phone. I don't care if gray is 'in' this year, it looks like crap as the background of a tree. The printouts not only are confusing to look at, they fit much less information to the page. It is a hassle now attaching a photo that is already in the media gallery to a new event in a different person. It scares me now that I have so much information on Ancestry, and I don't know what the future holds for this company/software.

I agree with anyone who has trashed the "new" ancestry.com program. It is SO horrible. It distorts information, especially with regard to any foreign ancestors. It is also invading your privacy more with additional sharing of "cookies" to third parties. I actually did get through to someone in ancestry with a pulse. The woman was so condescending. She used the excuse that software has to be updated from time to time. Maybe, but how does that explain that the information formatting is so invasive. Making up stories that have nothing to do with your own family? And it is harder to navigate. I told her to remember that a good number of us users are an older population, not that computer savvy. I cancelled my subscription. I hated to do it as I had found some great stuff in the year I was on, but this new version will eat your information and sell it to the highest advertising bidder. Beware, VERY aware!

I just subscribed to ancestry.com a couple of months ago, and at the same time bought the FTM software. I enjoyed building my family tree. But then ancestry announced they were discontinuing the FTM software, which means everyone is being pushed into an exclusive online subscription. I am not interested in that. I want all of my information on my own computer, under my own control. My intent was to do research for a couple of months, then discontinue my monthly subscription, and just renew it occasionally when I wanted to do more research. Since their announcement, I have changed my mind. I cancelled my subscription and am in the processing of transferring my data over to another software program. I am disgusted that ancestry has decided to "dumb down" their website, like so many other companies have decided to do (paypal being another perfect example), and make it what they think is visually appealing, but very far from being functional. I am a noob to genealogy, but some folks have been doing this for years, and now, from what I understand, data is being rearranged and lost because of ancestry's changes. I am so disgusted at how everything today comes down to investors making money at the expense of the people who put them in their lofty positions to begin with. I will have as little to do with ancestry.com as I possibly can.

It really is a shame that corporations can "use" customers by taking their money but not care about their customers views of the product. No notification that Ancestry was going to change the format or program, just "dictated" that it would be permanent on 12/15/15.
No customer appreciation? I HATE THIS FORMAT AND NOW HATE ANCESTRY. I WILL NOT RE-SUBSCRIBE. And yes, you have to pay to get all the information you researched and stored.

I went with Ancestry instead of Genealogy.com because of the affiliated program, FamilyTreeMaker. In 2014 I had to switch to their newer version. I failed to notice that FTM was purchased outright by Ancestry. Today, 12-08-2015 notified me by broadcast email they will no longer support or sell FTM. Looking at alternatives, I cancelled my subscription. I cannot remove the trees I have posted. They have changed the format online to get rid of most of the printouts I wanted, which are only available through FTM. I hope other long time customers like me will vote with their dollars and cancel. That is the only message they will understand. Anyone have a suggestion for another site and/or program to use?

First off, they said that you may decline your free trial membership whenever pleased. But did not inform you while putting in your card information to decline membership you have to pay $35.00 upfront!? And if you do continue your membership you pay around 30 plus a month? Outrageous. I thought that this company was for the benefit of us, but infact it is not. It is nearly difficult to navigate the website and I got around zero to one leads to connect with my family. I know absolutely nothing more about my history of my family than I did before I began. I do not mean to be so negative, but this was very dissatifying and nothing like what they claim the website to be.

Yes, Please get us back to the old format for goodness sakes! I will not renew my sub after many years. This is for beginners and that is ok too, but the seasoned researcher who pays year after year after year doesn't have the time or patience for all the prettiness and pictures that have no relevance to what we are attempting to achieve. Keep it simple as it was, because it worked! Give us back what we have paid for and what had grown to love. This is so difficult to work with, we want to see the families listed as they were and the ability to find the members quickly and visually identify them without a long story. Listen to your researchers and leave it as it was, please.

I have subscribed to Ancestry.com a number of times. The new format is terrible! Why do they keep changing it... always for the worse. At this point, I am looking for other avenues to pursue. I much prefer the old layout... much easier to work with for one thing. It is very difficult to see additional members, notes, etc.

Ancestry you really need to revert back to what you had and fire the people that came up with this new layout.

I am cancelling my subscription and encouraging others to do the same. Until this is changed, I refuse to submit any more information for your use.

I AM ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO CANCEL THEIR MEMBERSHIPS AS WELL.