Ancestry.com Reviews

(based on 22 reviews)

44 of 75 people found this review helpful

I did the DNA test and then 1 year of membership. At that point I spent $424 but was still happy.
THEN I accidentally let it auto-renew for 6 months of "all access" (the most expensive). I called them 3 weeks after my $211 PREPAID 6 months and explained my situation and asked for a refund. Nope. I asked for at least prorated refund (like 3 weeks out of 6 months). Downgrade my prepaid amount to the $99 membership and refund the difference? Nothing, no help, did not care. The agent just kept repeating "we're sorry sir, the process won't allow a refund". I asked to speak to his supervisor. Same answer. Their Customer Service won't even help me a little bit. I'm so bummed and now feel cheated and taken advantage of. I wanted to like Ancestry but they act like a massive organization that won't work with me. They just want my money! Upset!

In summary, I would recommend Ancestry.com to a friend.

49 of 108 people found this review helpful

Though ancestry.com does have "free trials", they can lead to ongoing charges which can be confusing and difficult to cancel. They are charging hundreds of dollars for information created by **other people**....

The estimated market value of Ancestry.com in 2017 was more than $3 billion. They have $850 million in revenue each year.

The Family-Tree branch of Ancestry (I'm not addressing the DNA branch, which I have never used and am not in a position to judge) offers two things: (1) family trees contributed by various individuals over the years and (2) public records (census records, death records, etc.).

They justify their (exorbitant) fees by saying that they have gathered more records and have better tools for accessing them than other services.

But I would suggest that there's at least one organization which offers almost as many records and comparable tools for free!! : FamilySearch (familysearch.com) . Despite being completely free, I've found their support and their tools to be excellent.

In summary, I would not recommend Ancestry.com to a friend.

238 of 417 people found this review helpful

I have been a steady subscriber of Ancestry since 2000 and off and on for a few years before that. I have cancelled my subscription which ends June 30th. The decision was based on the deletion of the "old search" and offering only the new search as their search functionality. The "new search" has been around since 2008 and they haven't gotten it right yet. I have tried it off and on over the years and reverted back to the old search. Since the old search was removed, I have given the new search a real try. While I have figured out how to work around many of its technical flaws, I no longer think it is worth the subscription price to have to do that. The other factor in actually making the decision to drop the subscription is that while veteran, experienced researchers and many with IT experience have noted the technical flaws, Ancestry comes back and says it is just a matter of getting used to it. They provide a link to the simulated old search function which is a joke as it is nothing like the old search. ... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would not recommend Ancestry.com to a friend.

256 of 473 people found this review helpful

The search engine is somewhat faulty. It will ignore exact matches and give you results that are not relevant either soundex or phonetic. This makes it mandatory that you search by hand thru the record and unfortunately sometimes all you have are indexes. The index also is difficult not clarifying names. For example, WHICH John Smith are you looking at? This leads to research problems and you end up chasing false leads which if you could have seen the record is the proper setting might you might have ignored.

It also bases hints on the most numerous entries. That means if 50 people are wrong and one is right, you will get the 50 wrong. You have to fiddle with the name to make other names that are soundex or phonetic matches appear. So the search is quite labor intensive often yielding poor results.

There is also a problem with the way it records the documentation that is a source. It doesn't understand the difference between sources and what is or isn't a source. Those 50 people are NOT sources. This leads to problems of accuracy.

The features... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would not recommend Ancestry.com to a friend.