Ancestry.com Sucks
Ancestry.com has an advertising campaign in full swing right now. I’ve seen them on TV and I’ve seen their ads plastered on websites.
I’m as curious about my roots as the next guy. I decided to take a look.
First I created my “family tree.” They allowed me to enter my name and “start my tree.” What a green friendly website. Lots of trees and leafs and such.
I then tried to add my spouse. Bingo! The first hurdle. They want me to fill out some form before continuing. Let’s see. It’s a “save tree” function and it only really wants my email address. I think I can live with that. Let’s continue.
I then went to add my father. That seemed to work as well. Here they had some “good news” for me. They had found an “ancestry hint” on my dad. I opened it to take a look.
Yep, that’s my dad alright. They had his birth date and place of birth correct. They also had the correct day he died, although the location was wrong. He didn’t die in the United States. He was in Mexico at the time trying some weirdo funky treatments for cancer at a rip-off medical resort. Ancestry.com said the information about my dad came from “2 public member trees.” Apparently some other Ancestry.com members were the source of their information about my dad.
I tried adding several more members of my tree. I never received another “ancestry hint.”
I then clicked the “review hint” button back on my dad’s record. BINGO! That took me to the Trial Membership page. Of course, I knew all along that this was my eventual destination where they were guiding me. I kept my mind open and went to look by clicking the “continue” button.
That’s when I landed on this little nugget*:
World Deluxe Membership 14-Day Free Trial
You won’t be billed if you cancel online or call before your free trial ends. Your price after the 14–day free trial is $299.40 for your annual subscription (plus any applicable tax).
Mothafucka!
To get my “free” trial I have to sign up for a $299.40 payment? And, here’s the kicker, you actually think your website is worth $24.95 a month??? I’ve spent some time on this planet and never in my entire life have a seen a website ask for that kind of money.
It’s my humble opinion that a free trial shouldn’t require a credit card. Of course, they want that payment to trigger automatically unless you do something to stop it. That’s how they get you.
Sorry, I can’t really afford $24.95 a month and for inaccurate information to boot. If I can find your online axe tool I’ll be chopping down my family tree. Of course, there is probably a charge for that, too. If George Washington was one of my ancestors maybe I can borrow his hatchet? That would make it a family heirloom.
Goodbye expensive tree website. Eat my ass.
* This was apparently their default offer that I reached by clicking the “continue” button. I logged in later and noticed you can also pay by the month. It’s $29.95 a month for the “World Deluxe Membership” and $19.95 a month for “US Deluxe Membership.” The difference is access to their world database.
Shouts from the Abyss 
The public member trees do have a lot of inaccurate information — but ancestry also has every US census between 1790 and 1930 searchable. (Except 1890, which was destroyed by fire.) They have databases filled with birth, marriage and death records, military records, and more. Many genealogists find it is worth the price, though there is free information out there.
The best free sites for genealogy research in my opinion:
http://www.familysearch.org
http://www.findagrave.com
http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/
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John, thansk for your information as well. Hmmm…I was turned off by the idea, and now I might look into these other possibilities!
~Nadia.
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I agree with Nadia. Thanks so much for the info, John.
Ancestry.com may be good, but the sticker shock puts it out of reach of the casual user, IMHO. I’m not about to drop the price of an iPod or a PS3 for merely one year of access. I guess it’s intended to be a tool for hard code genealogy buffs.
Thanks for visiting and for the comment!
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john, you are obviously controlled opposition, perhaps you should end your life before you infect the rest of the world with you ineffectual drivel? i’m only saying that you life has no value, and if you ended up face down in a river, possibly no one would miss you. point made.
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john, you are obviously controlled opposition, perhaps you should end your life before you infect the rest of the world with you ineffectual drivel? i’m only saying that you life has no value, and if you ended up face down in a river, possibly no one would miss you. point made.
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damn, i hate it when i typo on a rant….
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oh yeah, if your having a hard time self terminating, please feel free to post your address below, and either me or my friends will be happy to make the world a better place….
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Uhm….this was fun to read. I love your “kick ass” writing style! You are too funny!
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“Eat my ass” themed posts are turning out to be my specialty! 🙂
Thanks for the comment and the ongoing support! 🙂
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I love the humor you insert in your rants! Word to the wise – my sister got trapped by a site like this (that slowly lures you in asking for more and more info) and got annoyed at one point so she put an ex-friend’s email/phone # in for the info. Big oops! It backfired and the ex-friend had charges to her phone that were traced to my sister. And my sister had no idea that would happen – she just thought she might receive unwanted telemarketing stuff to her phone and email inbox.
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They suck beyond the bait and switch tactic. A few years ago I subscribed to access newspapers and other old records, and seriously, their database is crap crap crap. They wasted so much of my time, reading fuzzy tiny print to find out that the reference was not what I was searching for, seems if one of the names you’re looking for is common, they tend to ignore middle initials and send you dozens of hopeful, yet ultimately frustratingly useless info. I found more online free myself than I ever did on their suck site and cancelled as soon as I was able. Argh. yep, screw them.
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I saw the ad and gave it half a second’s thought. My attitude that relatives are like potatoes – the best ones are underground.
On my side of the family I have a cousin who spends way too much time at cemeteries in far flung places. Luckily, my husband’s family, who is a Mormon (the father, not my husband) just called to let us know they’ve traced his family back to Jesus. I’m awaiting an official certificate.
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I was just thinking about you today then you blogged then you visited! Wow! I have such powers. 🙂
When I first saw your name in this thread at first I felt guilty. I didn’t want a person as nice as you to be tainted by my evil. Then I read your opening sentence and chuckled. I think it must be ok for you to be here. 🙂
I just heard our public library has Ancestry.com for free. I think I said I’d consider paying $20 a year for it, but not $24.95 a month. But for free I’m willing to do a bit of digging. (Pun intended.)
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Hey, you’ve never worried that I’m too nice and might get tainted…;)
I, too, got sucked into this ancestry.com tease. I wanted to learn a little, but not at that price. I’m not sure that this company expects you to continue using their service, so they charge a lot to get what they can. Some amateur genealogy sleuths have a set of queries prepared and then do their searches quickly when they sign up and then they cancel. I do have some ardent genealogists in my family. If I want some info, I might go to them. I like history, but don’t think I’ll find I’m related to anyone who made the history books in a big way, unlike my sister-in-law whose ancestors include Miles Standish from the Mayflower.
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What are you doing slumming on this
ancient branch of the Abyss family treepost? You’re too good for a place like this. 🙂I honestly don’t understand the value of Ancestry.com but hey, that’s just me!
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Jesus? Big deal. I can trace my roots all the way to Japeth.
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Nifty. 🙂 I can trace mine back to my dad. I think. There’s a possibility it could have been the milkman. Damn, stymied at the very first step. At least I know my son is mine. I think.
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Ancestry.com is not a very good company. I had been using Family Tree Maker 16 for 3 years and built over 4000 people in the tree with over 1000 photos. Before I could print the “books’ my computer had to be relplaced and “surprise surprise” I had to buy 2010 Family Tree Maker. The Family Tree maker 16 would not work on my new compuiter. So i tried to upload my files and found that over 1/3 of the info did not translate and about 1.2 the pictures. I also found the new version cumbersome and full of “bugs”, meaning computer cliches. When i accessed their update section there were 3 pages of “fixes” they had issued to 2010. I wonder why they did not pretest with an expert useer like myself before selling to the public?
So,,, I wrote the head of Ancestry.com and let him know how disappointed I was in their coimpany (willful disregard for curremt paying members by not issuing appropriate computer patches from one sysem to another etc.) and the cumbersome nature of the new program. Not a response from him. This confirms that the company is being run by money grubbing amateurs who have little regard for the ancestry-searching commiunity and little ability to manage a large company. The program upgrades are not great, the annual fee is expensive so be careful before you invest 3 years like I did.
David Beittel; Palm Srpings, California Beittelpsprings@aol.com
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[…] Top Shouts My list of top five angry songsGuest Blog: Raising the ego bar – a year in reviewThe Golden Poo award: Post of the Year 2010Hyppo and Critter: Happy New Year!Sideways 2 – Merlot Strikes BackAncestry.com can eat my ass […]
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Free my ass, never got past the first screen….say there was an error….crap-ola!
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The “free” service includes error messaging. All other services are apparently “premium.”
🙂
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Ha, and that error couldn’t POSSIBLY be your fault? (Bad settings, mis managed trusted sites, etc?)
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Fuck These Cock Sucking Whores ! I tried to get my trial but somehow they didn’t recognize my street address! You know what they did recognize? My credit card number! All of a sudden it was “oh, you live there? I guess we couldn’t read it without something coming out of your account. There lucky I was desperate to finish a project at the time. after I was finished I cancelled on the same day and low and behold a month later they charge me again! They didn’t send me an email confirmation from the last time! so I couldn’t prove to them that I did in fact cancel the same day! So I ended up spending 44.00 on a site I used once! I’ve spent less on Porn!!!!!!
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Aaron, I feel your pain. It’s rather funny to see what works and what doesn’t, eh? Somehow the money-taking part always falls into the “Works” category! What are the odds???
My advice is dispute the hell out of everything they’ve ever charged you.
Studies show that the number one reason companies charge recurring fees for accounts that have been canceled is, “We forgot.”
“There was an unexplainable glitch” was a close second.
Good luck detaching yourself from the good folks over at Ancestry.com.
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I’m reading this because the exact same thing just happened to me! They’ve charged me for a second month when I already cancelled before the turn-over day. Not happy at all.
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They all SUCK ASS! This information should be FREE and AVAILABLE to everyone!
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You know, that’s not a bad idea. Perhaps there’s an opportunity there for someone to take an “open source” approach, like the Wikipedia model. If enough people used such a system eventually it could grow to be quite a resource.
Run with it, Sonny! 🙂
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It is free and available to everyone moron. You just have to do a SHIT ton of work to get access to these records and ancestry.com provides a localized service that helps you avoid waiting 2 or 3 months to get a draft card from the dept of defense. If people don’t like the prices, they can just go elsewhere. The amount of bitching about such a simple concept is hilarious to me.
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Thanks, Jeff. I like your spunk. Some of us like to treat bitching like a sport. Finally I can say, “I’m an athlete!”
The way you made your point makes me laugh. “The information is free. You just have to get off your ass to get it.” Good one. 🙂
I can envision myself having hours of fun playing with a website like Ancestory.com and learning about information that is essentially 100 percent irrelevant to my life. It might be interesting. But with the price of gas and food and a decades-long trend of reduced buying power, I have to be a little stingy when it comes to websites that want something like $25 a month, so I guess it isn’t meant to be. My interest in their service just doesn’t prioritize highly enough to justify that sort of expense.
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Yes! It belongs to us anyway. Our history is ours, and our taxes paid for the censuses (censi?!).
Take the power back!
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The information doesn’t belong to you. The census was not made nor kept for genealogical purposes. That they release it rather than destroy it is a God send. And you aren’t paying Ancestry for the member trees or any public information, you are paying them for 1. the technology they use to bring it to your computer and 2. the collections they have to pay for such as library collections and birth/death records from countries and states that don’t give that information freely even to the person(s) listed in them. Do you get a copy of your birth certificate free? It’s your information isn’t it?
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Sure, when you see the guy on public TV finding celebrities long lost relatives, and all for free mind you.
Sometimes they shed a tear when they find their gg granny. Heck.I would cry too when I realize
I getting it for free. Bottom line is searching the web for this kind of information will cost you. Geneology
and Ancestry are big businesses making million on folks starved for family history. I think is a scam
and went to the FREE records of towns or cities where the info was stored. It was free. They dont
charge you to go to a library, why should you be held up by these peddlers of geneology
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Well said, Art. More and more I’m thinking someone who is brilliantly ahead of their time needs to start an open source genealogy web site. I see huge opportunity there!
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Yeah coz Wikipedia is known for accuracy. There are several open source sites that give you free documents ONLY if they are publicly available. They can’t give you for free anything that the holder of the original document requires a payment system for transfer of copyright. Geni, Genforum, MyHeritage, Ancestory, even FamilySearch all offer free options that aren’t at all hard to get at. Each one has a tree sharing service. Each one provides you with several free options, you just can’t get everything that is available online (heck, even Ancestry doesn’t have *everything*) and 90% of what is available for family history isn’t online at all…. Your article, comments and replies are all very ill-informed and utterly useless. You didn’t try their service, you stopped before you really gave it a fair shake so you could make this article. Every website that has a free trial requires a credit card for identification and auto bill pay…. not new. I’ve seen many websites at $30 a month for a variety of services, so even your jab about that cost being prohibitive is senseless. Ancestry’s yearly subscription is less than $1 a day and holds the largest online database of records not found on any free site (and many pay sites don’t have what Ancestry has free or otherwise). I realise the economy is bad, but it’s called a budget. You chose not to use the money for Ancestry, fine. I choose to skip cable bills since I’m not watching TV anyway….
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Hi Anarhi, thanks for the comment. I respect your point of view. And I don’t have cable, either.
I’m not sure who “owns” my genealogical information. Can it be copyrighted? What if someone built a website that allowed me to say, “I am me and so-and-so was my mom and so-and-so was my dad. And their parents were XYZ, etc.” What if that website was open source. And what if it allowed everyone to punch in their data or the data on other people they know. Who owns the information?
I think it would be cool to see an “open” website like that.
Why are we always so hung up on “owning” every little thing?
By the way, I did try the service, I just never paid for it. And, like I said, I was less than impressed. You may be a fan and/or affiliated with the company, but I have a different opinion. Vive la difference!
Less than a dollar a day means less than $365 a year and, to me, that’s a freakin’ lot of dough. That makes it one of the most expensive online services I’ve ever seen. My genealogical information just isn’t worth that much to me. Maybe for others it is and that’s fine. It’s all just another free market win-win.
Thanks, again!
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I hadn’t come back to this in a while and just wanted to point out that the free information sharing that you wish to have is a part of Ancestry.com via their free to view trees (also found on their other site Mundia.com- both requiring only a user name to view the trees).
As for Roderick’s comment below: they don’t steal information, they buy it. They buy it from those who require payment (governments, libraries, historical societies, lifetime genealogists…..). The records aren’t bogus, the trees usually are. And I reply here because this ties into what you, shoutabyss, are wanting: free information sharing. Those trees and mailing lists that have always been free on any genealogy site have the highest rate of misinformation. The ability to view records (the facts) from your home is what Ancestry requires payment for. The do have several hundred free databases of public information, but the private information collected from private entities or under government contract requires payment (Scotland, for example, requires you use their own pay per view website save for a very small amount they share with Ancestry as part of the paid service).
And as for cost, I just read that the January estimate was 82 million people worldwide spending anywhere from $1000 to $18,000 to research their genealogy. As for myself, I am a professional genealogist unaffiliated with Ancestry, but very thankful for what they provide as it has increased my research areas. Without it I would be stuck doing research in a slower, more concentrated circle of geographic areas and wouldn’t be able to help my customers as much as I have. I do use 5 websites daily (including the free FamilySearch) and a handful of others during a month to supplement what isn’t readily gathered in one place. I do wish you’d give them another chance as I sincerely believe that you and your readers are missing the point of the free trial and without using that trial you never really saw the site.
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Hi again, Ana! I appreciate your input. Of the information I saw on Ancestry.com, my dad’s info was incorrect. Since I only saw a handful of people, that’s a pretty high error rate. Maybe I’m just lucky. Like always. 🙂
I still think an open source genealogy site would be a great idea (if it doesn’t already exist).
I’m not saying Ancestry.com has no value. I just think the price is high. And I don’t like forking over my credit card for “free” trials. And I know they didn’t invent that schtick.
Just for you I might go back and look again. At least I can find out if they straightened out my dad’s info. And it could give me a chance to do a follow-up review. I believe this very post is currently the #1 result in Google for the phrases “ancestry sucks” and “ancestry.com sucks.” It’s great to be at the top of tree! 🙂
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I could not agree more. They are the Carnegie’s and Rocketfellers of the present day. I would not thrust them with anything. Most of the info on their site is bogus. In 2012 most people with a brain know they are the worst. MOst of the info that is legit was stolen from the hard work of genealogists around the world. Ancestry.com can bite me.
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Those are strong opinions, Roderick. Did you give them a try? If so, what was your experience? Thanks for the comment!
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Without a doubt they are the Carnegie/Roketfeller/Vanderbilt/ etc. of the present day. Did I say robber barron? Oh dear! If they aren’t why oh why is it that you can upload your tree for free but if someone wants to see it they have to take out a membership? That to me is dishonest crooked and totally immoral. Their census may be alright but I would never trust a tree uploaded to the internet for all the tea in China. The best trees are the ones whereby the genealogist has done his own research. To prove my point a few years back say like 15 I uploaded a tree to ancestry. all the names were in order but the dates were all fake. Lo and behold that tree is now in the databases of more than 20 trees online with the fake dates so you see unless you are willing to do the hard work you remain the copier and I the genealogist. Cruel? Not at all! It just goes to show that 90% of us are copiers and 10% of us are real genealogists. As for ancestry.com the tree is there also. Oh btw with the proper javascript you can get anything on the net for free. It’s called hacking but in the case of ancestry.com it’s called good hacking.
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I’m still hopeful that an open source project will come along. A Wikipedia of ancestry would be a neat thing, I think.
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There is an open source website (several in fact). Also, you can see all public trees from ancestry.com on their sister site mundia.com.
Say what you will, ancestry is still the best place for real records and no free site will ever be able to compete. Why? For the simple reason that thousands of ancestry’s collections had to be purchased by them to be able to give to us. A free site would go broke paying for the rights just to give it away.
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Thanks for the info! Maybe some day and open source website will catch up and take the lead.
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Roderick B., I was online and noticed this post. I have the free membership and I did see public trees. Now I can’t see any public trees, not even my cousin’s tree. It is odd putting up a tree and only paying members can see it. I got most of my family information from Familysearch.
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Ana say what YOU will… This post save me $25!
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Glad to be of assistance! 🙂
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I told my relative whose into the genieology stuff to keep my name off a tree. It pisses me off they have stuff about MY relatives on there in a tree and other relatives can’t see it without a subscription.
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I understand that genealogists will collect data and I find it hard to oppose that. The part I disagree with is locking it away like it is somehow proprietary and attempting to squeeze profits from public information.
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Vi, a subscription is NOT needed for the tree viewing. You do need a registered email address to get a User ID and a password, but you can view all public trees on Mundia.com (Ancestry’s tree viewing site) or directly at Ancestry.com. You can even invite family members to view and contribute to one tree without needing a subscription. The subscription pays for access to the records, not the trees or the user submitted information.
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My point exactly. They’ll take any info you put there and then charge anyone who wants to see it a subscription price. Ancestry Buys the info? Maybe some but certainly not all.
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Oh, another thing, really dedicated geneologists seem to be secretive and extremely snooty. Wonder what they found and want to hide.
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Most people I’ve ever known who were into genealogy were mainly curious about their own family history.
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Ha! They’re doing the campaign again lol … And you just saved me at least an hour of my time. The Mormons are good at the geneology thing too, but that’s a whole ‘nother racket … Guess it’s off to actually talk to my family to track “family history” down 😉
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So glad I could help! 🙂
BTW, they are based in Provo, Utah. Hmmmmm?
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Calling Genealogy a racket is by far too kind. When fun turns into an addiction, it’s no longer fun. Religion proved that.
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Now they are including misc data not necessary like race, estimated age, and relationship in the family in the “Comment” field that you can’t remove during the merge. Now you have to walk thru each person to remove the unnecessary data in the commment field and the race. They have done this on purpose to slow down the user from accessing and merging data on their trees now so they have to extend their agreement to generate more revenue to pay for their excessive buyout last year!
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I am still surprised at how much ya’ll don’t know about Ancestry.com or how to use it. If anything, I’m glad you don’t use the system so your continued obstinacy and ignorance don’t affect my research.
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Hey, Ana. I described my initial (and only) experience with Ancestry.com exactly as it happened. Obviously something about this post continues to resonate.
I can certainly see where Scott’s opinion comes from. The site feels greedy. They take public information and sell it at a very high price. In that respect they seem a close cousin to the mugshot industry on the web. Nefarious, in my humble opinion.
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Your use of ignorance is at best IRONIC.
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Oh, too make things even better, the “Sync” process has slowed down to a snails crawl…keeping you off the computer for minutes to hours waiting for it to complete!
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I appreciate you sharing your experience!
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Once again, for the hearing impaired: Ancestry.com does not sell public information. The record collections you pay for are from private sources or government agencies that would require payment even if you went directly to them.
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Ana, I think you missed my point. The information itself is public. The source of the information is irrelevant. Industries that scrape information from public sources and then sell it to consumers for profit are legion. (Real estate being a prime example.) The fact that payment was required to obtain the information is irrelevant.
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The information is *not* public. The information is held privately and not disseminated in any way shape or form freely anywhere. A cemetery is private property. A bible is private property. A census, believe it or not, is private property.
Your telephone number, address, and some portions of criminal history are public information, yes. Your social security, medical information, and thousands of other bits of data are not. That is the point. You are confused as to the meaning of public information and that is why you continue to insist they are charging for something they should not. You are misinformed and you are spreading misinformation.
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Hi Ana. I wasn’t sure, so I happened to research it before spouting off. 🙂
I’m not a lawyer and I don’t claim to know all the ins and outs, but I did find this:
“Birth records are public information 100 years after the date of the event; death, marriage, and divorce records, 25 years after the event.”
That’s copied from an official government website. (The State of Virginia.) Perhaps the rules vary state to state? I don’t know.
Based on this, and without knowing more, I would assume that at least some genealogy information is public, especially birth records 100 years old and death records 25 years old. At least in the great state of Virginia.
No doubt there’s a lot more information in Ancestry.com database that just these basic facts, and not once have I claimed that their entire database is public. Much of the information, like the erroneous information about my dad, was no doubt input by their members.
It’s a fact that my dad was born Imma B. Taker back on Nov. 31, 1802. Do those three pieces of data (name, date, birth) belong in the public domain or does Ancestry.com somehow happen to “own” them because they happen to also be in their database? That fact that the information exists in their database is not proof that the information is not public.
Hopefully this helps to reduce your opinion of me as “confused.”
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Ana,
If your legal facts are in any way related to your genealogy facts your tree must be pretty shagged up.
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The whole setup is a huge earner for many companies as people business, is big business and they are simply cashing in on it.
Firstly, most of the information found in their public records can be found online if you are persistent and know where to look and even a lot of that data is either not precise or incorrect.
The parts that would be of interest to me is the public member trees, photos and scanned documents which of course is only put up by people, these are not official public records and I am not going to pay hundreds of dollars per year just for that, because it`s simply not good value for money.
So in fact ancestry.com and their subsidiary companies change a fee to subscribed members to place their data onto their site and others have to pay subscribe in order to access that information, then all the owners do is sit back and watch all the paid subscriptions coming in, or in other words, this racket is a nice little earner.
Also there are probably many of our details on the ancestry.com site or as parts of others family trees, without our knowledge and without our permission and if discovered ancestry.com gives the complainants a real hard time trying to have the stuff deleted. People can publish a lot of private material about others on ancestry.com without permissions or concerns about copyrights as in many cases they are protected under the auspices of these so-called genealogical companies, which means many people unbeknown to them are making contributions to these companies and the only ways to discover if we are listed on their sites is to pay subscribe ourselves. These huge companies are in a win, win situation.
I have no prejudices against any companies making achievements and becoming successful, but my grievances are; is that anyone can place data about anyone on there with virtually no questions asked and I ask; why should I or others have no say with our details being publish on those sites and why should people have to pay subscribe to access information about themselves?
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Excellent comment.
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Loved your blog. I saw a ginormous amount of complaints from subscribers on the Ancestry.com website..all pissed n disgusted..so that was plenty for me. The Church of Latter Day Saints ( aka Mormons ) ave about 2 billion birth and death records stored in underground salt chambers..it was in Smithsonian or Natl Geo . So a good place to start is to contact your local Church of Latter Day Saints..u don’t think think oone near you? Check again..I was surprised..they’re all over the place. Not sure if yheyll help u..I’m gonna see if they will . They all are connected to the main one in Salt Lake City w access to all those records. Sorry bout typos..this phone screen is messed up ghosting a lot..it won’t let me delete misspelled words w.o deleting letters elsewhere in the text automatically.
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The LDS runs the website Familysearch.org
They also welcome all family historians regardless of faith to their Family History Centers, churches and main library for research.
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….anyway..about 60 years ago my moms aunt joined the Daughters of the American Revolution..they did the ancestry for her. Years later in ’81 I was so entertained by what it showed: it traced to King Alfred the Great ( about 801 , 850 a.d) England then his daughter ,who married a,king, several Arnoulds ( aka Arnualf ) of Flanders(now Belgium..King Arnold 1,2,3, Baldwin 1,2,3 to Empress Mathilda who designed that famous tapestry w the unicorn. Then William the Conquerer ,Eleanor of Aquitaine who owned more land in Europe than any one person, to King Edward 1,2,3 Henry 1 and 2 and John of Gaunt …we had several dynasties..the Plantagenets, several others..altogether about 28 kings n queens of England ,France, western Europe …the biggest names. All those royals in an unbroken line.
It was a lot of fun to a history buff like myself who already knew about many of them. Now ,other than that it didn’t do anything to make me richer or have a higher social standing.
U must also realize that somewhere in your ancestry someone probably cheated on their spouse…so the bloodline is not true. Who knows how many times this happened Think about it..whether u see great exciting or blah results. U just never really know.
Also I’ve met 2 different people who shared the same common ancestor with me going back around thousand yesrs ago or more. That was fun..calling each other ” cousin” ..”hey cuz”
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By 28, I mean 28 generations in a row of kings and queens..some of the biggest names of English, French,and western european history. We also have the Merovingian dynasty..that story about it going back to Mary and Jesus is simply not true .It’s b.s.
Sometimes your recent history is more fascinating..my Irish catholic dad was married to my mom.for 41,yrs. ,died never knowing she was half Jewish.
She wasn’t gonna ever let any of us know. And btw..it happens a lot more than u might believe. Now I want to find out more about my grandfatheRuJewishistory. We did not discover this fromsearch..it was a letter from an uncle who vouldnt live a lie anymore. And then my mom.reluctantly opened up. She still doesn’t want anyone to know. And some of my siblings don’t want anyone to know we come from a Jewish grandfather …I think its fascinating. And the story behind the cover up is really interesting.
So I hope u all find some fascinating stories in your search..and after all..it is all about the stories anyway.
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Anyway, Shouts from The Abyss..I think Ana is just a wee bit cocky. I found this site by googling” ancestry.com sucks ” . Some libraries give free classes on how to do your own search . I’m so glad I read all those comments and the ones here..u all saved ne from any more aggravation…I had only just started tonight n had problems.
But maybe the truth is that all u peeps who r getting screwed over by them should start a petition …if its big enough it’ll be in the media n draw negative attention to them..which I think they re ally deserve .
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A wee bit cocky? I guess, but I see myself as one of the few rational voices out there. Not everything Ancestry.com does is my cup of tea, but since they have the largest online database, the time and money saved by using them can’t be denied. As for people being “screwed over”, I’m not sure how many have a legit complaint as most of them are user error or misunderstanding. Currently there’s a technology gap that is causing server errors that I’d wish they’d fix, but that’s due to their lack of a redundancy system and neither users nor the media will make them get to that any faster than they want to.
I do a lot of work offline, but Ancestry.com is not my only online source either. ScotlandsPeople, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Geni, Fold3, Genforum, Wikitree, Newspapers, NewspaperArchives, and a half dozen state run websites are all useful to their own degree. My whole point with my comments here have been that this review doesn’t give Ancestry.com a fair shake. And that the hope for a crowd sourced option (of which there are already many) only illustrates how new the writer is in the field of genealogy in general. User uploaded information is always the last resort as it’s usually the first to be full of errors. That this post continues to get attention is the only reason I have it alert me of replies as there still seems to be a lot of misunderstanding out there about what Ancestry.com and genealogy in general are all about *four years later*
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I respect your opinion, Ana. I just went back and re-read the original post. It’s short and factually documents my experience with the service and my reaction to their pricing. Maybe the database is super accurate but in my case I found errors within moments. Perhaps it is suitable to hardcore tree researchers, but the pricing is such that it excludes casual ancestry lookie-loos like me. Perhaps they should offer a simple tree plan or some such? In this end this was just a throw away post about website pricing, but it continues to be one of the most viewed posts I’ve ever written. There just might be a reason for that. I wish you well. Have a great day!
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A wee bit? That’s like saying Trump is a wee bit stupid. LMAO!
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Ok,,Ana..after re reading..fair is fair..u are not wee bit cocky. Maybe I saw your personal experience as expertise ..which maybe it actually is . So shout of thanks to u, also john and others who mention all the other sites.
I called the Church of Latter Day Saints and they were very nice ,friendly. Yes..they really do have local family history centers that u can make an appointment with and theyll help u for free. Can’t beat that.
I tried to use familysearch.org..church of LDS and did have some problems w that..maybe because I’m using my android phone instead of regular computer. I don’t understand why in the empty field we fill in ,why it doesn’t ask if you know the exact date..and if so ,to provide ample room for the info. What if the name is very common..then having exact dates if can provide them should get the search off to a quicker start.
I think quite simply the reason so many angry w ancestry .com is that they say its free. Too bad they can’t just apprise from the beginning and just say the truth. No one likes that kind of gimmick.
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It really is a rip-off. And they have taken over all the census records online (that I’ve tried to get info’ from) I HATE ancestry.com
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Thanks for that feedback!
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You comment is inaccurate.
I am on ancestry.ca and have uncovered a wealth of information without spending a cent! You are given the option to “add” articles and leaves to the tres by buying them- or you can just read them for free (just can’t save them) and you don’t have to buy the membership or give any credit card info…
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When you find that online axe tool, i might have a swing of mine too. A very accurate account of the online family tree $ spinner.
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Horrible people. Someone sent me an invite to view her tree. I went through hell just trying to get on. Almost an hour with that stupid membership pop up coming at me at least 25 times. Fuck Ancestry!
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Thanks for the review. I guess everyone who has seen the ads has been tempted by Ancestry.com. Thanks to you, I won’t bother because I don’t want to spend that much money either.
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Hey, thanks for making the trip into the muck. You like to live dangerously? I always feel bad when a nice person is exposed to me. 🙂
The ancestry website may have some value. I’m not sure as I never bothered to go back and look again. I just felt their fees were a little pricey for doodling around. That felt super greedy to me. But that’s just my opinion.
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Hi Dinata. I just looked. They offer three price levels now.
“U.S. Discovery” is $19.99 or $99 for six months
“World Explorer” is $34.99 or $149 for six months
“All Access” is $44.99 or $199 for six months
That shit ain’t cheap. I have no information on the accuracy of their data but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
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I was unable to try the site using the “free trial” because they require a credit card before letting you look around. That ain’t gonna happen.
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Yes Ancestry.com still sucks ass and still rips into you for inacurate information, I infact found more info in 10 mins with google than I did with this shit web screwover websuck.
Nothing ever changes.
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Congratulations. “Screwover websuck” is today’s secret phrase that pays. 🙂
Thanks for the comment!
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Yeah, I tried the free trial to all their records. Its completely different than advertised. No leaf will pop up showing you a family member you didn’t know about. Its basically a record lookup, if you know the first and last name and birthdate of a family member they will display all records on that person. That’s it lol, no long lost relatives none of that shit.
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[…] Ancestry.com can eat my ass #sucks […]
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Only a gullable sucker would go for this . OF COURSE the information is not accurate. This site is a SCAM and they are GOV SPIES gathering DNA and whatever info the sheeple will provide. All under the guise of ‘help you find your roots’. If you didnt know from the stupid commercials that it was a scam ..well…thats your stupidity. When they have some guy say ‘i thought my whole life i was german but turns out im irish’ ohhhhh bull doo doo. As if your family for generations thought they were german. Your great grandparents had it all wrong. For generations your family thought they were german but nope ancestry is here to tell you they were irish. LMAO !! Such a crock. Last but not least..WHO CARES!!!!!!! WHO CARES THAT YOUR GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDPA GOT SHIPPED TO AMERICA IN A BOX OF ORANGES OR THAT HE WAS,A PHARMACIST. ??? And why would you trust an invisible source like ancestry to tell you that. How would they know? They are a business and they lie to dumb sentimental people who want useless unimportant info that theres no.proof of. Geez i cant believe anyone falls for this scam! If you do you deserve to be duped. Land of the gullable and stupid.
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We are not much different then the days of President Taft when he broke up monopolies in the early 1900s that controlled the political machines.
If humans are lazy and weak history repeats itself and for information Ancestry.com is a HUGE monopoly and is now like the AT&T company before it was broken off by existing anti trust laws already in place.
We have Anti Trust laws for a jolly good reason.
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Ancestry.com It’s Crap . Joined to get a boost on my tree. Got several leafs for my dad’s dad (my grandfather) however 2 of the 3 had trees of some relatives through marriage and blood had misinformation about my grandfathers middle name and his fathers place of death. When contacted them they acted very secretive about who they were i. e. not using their first or last name just usernames or even what state they lived in (and would not even entertain the idea the idea that they had incorrect info.)even though one guys wife’s mother is my 1st cousin & another users tree listed his Great Aunt so and so who actually turns out to be my Dad’s sister or my paternal Aunt. Also these users had 90 % of their trees ancestors (including tons of deceased) set on private . I get that for some living people ie kids etc but the one gent had my paternal grandfather (his wife’s long deceased great grandfather) set on private…how can that be he’s my damn Grandfather. In other words it’s in his tree it shows up as link to me but only he can see it makes absolutely no sense why Ancestry would allow this how can you connect peoples lineage. Also for the snotty secretive users you can go on Facebook & The Internet and find out all kinds information about where you live what your full name is and what’s your favorite beer etc lol! What a pathetic site!
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“Trees” and “leafs.” LOLZ! Thanks for giving us the “dirt” on the situation. Now I feel “soiled.” Appreciate the comment, Jim!
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OMG I love this blog! I love the anger & also the good information. I utterly despise ancestry.com for greedily holding onto all that information. Merci.
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I love you more!
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You guys all need to check your local library. Many libraries have a subscription to Ancestry.com, granted you have to physically use the computers AT the library to get into it, but it will give you full member access. Happy searching!
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They won’t stop feeling my money I’ve been trying to cancel for months and months I’m so sick of these bastards I can’t stand it
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