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WikiTreeReviews 25

1.7

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WikiTree Reviews Summary

WikiTree has a rating of 1.7 stars from 25 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. WikiTree ranks 49th among Genealogy sites.

service
12
value
8
shipping
3
returns
3
quality
13

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Virginia
47 reviews
219 helpful votes
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Truly Dangerous
October 31, 2021

I had a horrible experience with WikiTree and got nowhere in learning about my family. The website is run by people who control your every move. My entries were merged with others' without my permission and some were removed for capricious reasons. I honestly felt harassed. After a couple of years, I gave up completely after receiving a really nasty message from another user. I then tried to delete my account--and they wouldn't let me! Some mystery person who apparently was one of the site controllers/admins kept messaging me about how I'd "made too may contributions" to leave. I was told that the only thing I could do was request anonymization of my data, but I couldn't leave. That completely freaked me out. I was unsuccessful in getting my account deleted. WikiTree is both a cult and a scam; they build their site on the backs of contributors and then refuse to do what the contributors want._____________

Update 5/19/2023: Now that a year and a half has passed since I wrote this, I'd like to make a comment about the five-star reviews that have appeared since. Interesting, isn't it, that they sound like some sort of ads that reassure people that WikiTree is helpful and not abusive and creepy. Also interesting is that two of them were written one week apart in October 2022. Clearly someone is behind a campaign to "rescue" this horrible website from the (very accurate) 1-star reviews. Take that into consideration as you read.

Date of experience: October 31, 2021
Georgia
1 review
26 helpful votes
Follow William V.
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I signed up for WikiTree November on Nov. 4,2018. By its own count, I made more than 6,000 contributions & earned dozens of badges. Then, after a spat on their G2G forum, in which I was accused of fraud and spamming for posting links to tartan background images I created, based on the official threadcounts for the Swedish & Norwegian Tartans, I found my replies in my defense hidden; then I was unable to answer questions on the forum, or send Private Messages, or edit my own Profile, or Profiles I'd created for my relatives.

Date of experience: April 15, 2020
Virginia
49 reviews
191 helpful votes
Follow Lilly G.
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I find any genealogy site where one can't remove information troubling. As lovely as it is to think of one large world wide tree, many would view it as a dangerous invasion of privacy, that might be making someone vulnerable. In an age where none of us have enough privacy, I find this site, Find A Grave and Family Search's tree function alarming.

Date of experience: March 11, 2020