Ancestry

I had a friend coming to visit so we ordered kits to take when she arrived. To make sure Ancestry would be here I paid $37.90 in express shipping for 2 kits to make sure they arrived on time. I received a confirming email that they would be here, then a second email they would arrive in 10-11 days (too late). Twice I replied to that email asking them to confirm express shipping. No reply either time. When they didn't arrive as scheduled I called and was advised they were shown as in my city and out for delivery - for 2 days. They escalated the case. That person said they could only log into UPS website but could not provide any additional information. I asked what she could do and she read me every box on the UPS screen. I advised that didn't help so she read the same boxes again. I asked if she could contact UPS and find out what is going on and that if they are in my city I would go pick them up. She advised she could not make outgoing calls. I suggested to her that she should provide me with the US tracking and phone numbers so I could call. UPS was able to confirm the package is lost. They have a tracer and won't resolve for 8 days. I asked them to at least let Ancestry know the package was lost so I could be refunded. I called Ancestry back the next day to make sure UPS had time to document the package was lost. I advised Ancestry I wanted a refund on the shipping. Ancestry says they have no control over the shipping company. I agree, but since they contracted the shipping and paid they shipping it is up to them to get that back from UPS, UPS is not refunding it to me. She had to refer it to a supervisor and Ancestry cannot refund the shipping. I suggested she discount the cost of my kit to offset half of the shipping to meet me halfway. Again they cannot do that. So I advised I would be cancelling the order and expecting a full refund and that I would go on no less than 6 sites to write a poor review. After all of that, she asked me to hold the line to take their survey. I asked if she was kidding because I would not give a good review. She said that was fine they are required to ask which means she was more concerned with them listening to her call and scoring her on asking the customer to provide a review than actually providing customer service.

Overall, Ancestry is supposed to have the best database if you want to find relatives - but it is not free (she did offer me a free month which I did not want). Other sites are less expensive, faster turnaround time to get your results and in some areas you can pick up the kits locally. Other sites also send information about your genetic health markers in addition to your heritage. I am trying them out today. I recommend everyone choose one of the others. I found a great website that does a comparison of various DNA companies. I cannot put the link in a review but do a quick search and see what the others have to offer - more for less with service!

Elizabeth C

My whole family has done the Ancestry DNA test, with stunningly accurate results. The key to using this test, and being satisfied, is understanding the basics of DNA and genetics. I see all these negative reviews, and Ancestry can all be broken down into 3 categories. 1)" I don't like what it showed me." This can be avoided by entering into the test knowing that you have history that you don't know of, and may not like. You might discover that someone had a baby with the (eh-hem) milk man. Or that your family origins are not quite as pure as you would like them to be. 2)" This test sucks because I couldn't spit" It's a spit test, if you can't spit, don't order this test. 3) " My test failed" Well yes, your test failed because you either didnt provide enough sample or you allowed other people to handle your sample and smear their DNA on your sample. Follow the instructions and your test won't fail.
All in all, this is a good test, and a good company. Like any other test, it does require that you follow the instructions, and you have to be prepared to see things you may not like or things that surprise you. So, if you are determined to believe that you are a " full blooded Italian" you may wanna skip this one.

I canceled my subscription but Ancestry charged me anyway. I thought I had canceled it two days before expiration, but I was billed anyway. It is very difficult to cancel and you will have no luck if you dispute it once you are charged.
There are 5 steps to cancel.
1. Click here. If prompted, sign in to your account.
2. In the Subscriptions section, click Cancel subscription.If there's no Cancel subscription link on your My Account Options page, the account you're signed into does not have a membership. If you're being charged for a membership, you probably have another Ancestry account. Sign out of the account you're in and sign back in using a different email address. If that doesn't work, contact us to find the account you're being billed on.

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select a cancellation reason, then click Continue.
4. At the bottom of the next page, click Continue to cancel.
5. At the bottom of the next page, click Cancel my membership. Unless you're within the refund window, your subscription will end automatically at the end of its current term. You can find the Ends On date on Your Account page.
6.! Check the email address associated with your Ancestry account. If you see a cancellation confirmation, your membership has been canceled! If you don't see an email, start over at step 1 and make sure you complete all five steps above.

As I write this, I am still able to access the "Classic" format. I venture over to the new format a couple of times a week. Ancestry are slowly adding features that I use... BUT. There is more "clicking and scrolling" with your mouse. Not a big deal unless you have arthritis in your hands. The background colors are extremely difficult if you have vision problems. Also if you want to print something out, if the page has any color in the back ground you use a lot of ink. The "Classic" format was black print on white background.

Then, the one change that has many disgusted with Ancestry: Putting square or rectangle photos in a round circle. It looks horrible! Sure, they shrink down the photo to fit into the circle but then you have grey background surrounding that photo. It's ugly!

Funny, tho. I saw one of their new advertisements today. Those pictures on the tv screen are rectangle. They should show them shrunk down and fitted inside the grey circle.

My tree will be going private and my information will not be available to the public. That means that the subscribers will not be able to see what information I find and record on my ancestry tree.

Also, once the Classic view is no longer an option, I will be canceling my subscription.

Used to be a great site! Genealogy was a hobby I loved and worked on for hours on end almost every day! Ancestry decided to revamp the whole site and all the changes are HORRIBLE! Customers are beside themselves with frustration and anger at having their complaints ignored! There are all kinds of glitches causing incorrect data to be displayed in peoples trees. Lots of people, including myself, have made their trees private for this reason. They have made once simple features complicated and every task requires tons more clicks and scrolling than before! If you want to know more, go to the Ancestry home page, scroll to the bottom and click on the Ancestry Blog, then go to any of the "New Ancestry Update" posts and read all the comments by ancestry users who can barely contain their rage and are practically frothing at the mouth! This is about much more than people resisting change as some claim. It's about destroying the accuracy of years of work on one's family history, it's about taking away important features and tools & making once easy tasks more difficult. And worst of all, the Life Story feature is just Ancestry trying to write YOUR family story FOR YOU! And with all kinds of mistakes! This feature CAN'T be completely turned off! You can turn it off so you don't have to see it but everyone visiting your tree still can! The whole thing is a giant outrageous MESS!

I have had an ancestry account since about 2006, so this isn't a weekend freebie review. I had a paid account until Ancestry went into the non working downgrade they forced us to change to. Nothing works consistently on the site. For the price they charge they should not have daily issues such as... page not available... we're having problems... you have no hints (when you have over 1000) nor when you click on your tree should you get a message such as "We are currently unable to find the tree you are trying to access. We may be experiencing technical difficulties, or it is possible that the tree owner has removed this tree." Yes YOU ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES again! Since they jacked up the price and charge you for everything, their service has gone down to nothing. Its clear no one at ancestry has a family tree or the site would work and be user friendly. Every day there are issues with the site! I recently purchased an account due to special offer and in hopes they corrected their issues only to find everything has gotten worse. I have had nothing but problems of one sort or another so today I decided to do something better with my time. Warn Others! Join only if you don't plan to work on your family tree or unless you enjoy paying for "we're experiencing technical difficulties" and very little gets done on your tree! DNA tells you nothing really. Where your ancestors may have come from 60,000 years ago (one test they have) or where some came from. That test will show you people who might be related if they have an ancestry account.

I have been a Worldwide member of Ancestry since 2007. I recently attempted to get a DNA test for my 90 year old mother. As is the case with many 90 year-old people, Mom is not computer literate. Therefore, I thought I could just manage her DNA test for her. I would send her the test, she would take it and mail it in and I would do the computer stuff. Unfortunately, Ancestry requires that every person taking a DNA test have an email and an Ancestry account. I could not use Mom's information with my account. I don't want to other accounts in Mom's name and explaining all of this to her would just make her nervous. I can't be the first person with an elderly relative who is skittish about computers. I don't understand the need for these separate accounts and question the "protection" Ancestry afford since they could easily be faked. I don't see how Mom would be more protected by this system. I will say Ancestry is refunding my money, but this was disappointing and really a hassle. This was supposed to be fun. It wasn't.

Furthermore, Ancestry currently seems more interested in getting people to take DNA tests than people interested in genealogical research. In fact, Ancestry is flooded with the results of people who have no genealogical research connections to their DNA results. Without this research, all an Ancestry DNA test will give you is a few cultural percentages and probable immigration patterns. It may suggest a few cousins to you, but without additional research you will have no way of knowing how or if you are connected to these people.

BTW-- I've been a Worldwide member of Ancestry since 2007. I wish there was another service I could use besides Ancestry. The direction the company has taken in the past couple of years has not been positive.

There isn't a box for no stars!
I only dare venture onto that new ancestry site for five minutes at the most, I feel my blood pressure rising every time I take a peek to see if Ancestry have listened to us and improved it, but no they have not listened one bit, not yet anyway! What a complete joke it is. They are making their long term customers look like idiots with all the mistakes they are making with OUR HISTORY. I just looked at two people tonight, that was enough to make me reach for a glass of sherry, or two! So they think my gt gt grandmother lived in Wellington New Zealand, do they (Wrong again, it's Wellington Shropshire England) She never left England! And according to ancestry my gt gt grandfather was born in Dawley Middlesex. Well, what do you know, they got it wrong again, he was born in Dawley Shropshire England. And my 4th gt grandfather did not fight the battle of\Waterloo in 1815 in Ontario. ONTARIO! For goodness sake, don't they know any history themselves. The battle of Waterloo took place in Belgium for your information ancestry! I find it quite insulting that ancestry put that in, as my 4th gt grandfather was very badly wounded at Waterloo, indeed he was very lucky to survive the battle, and he was only 20.

Waste of time, ridiculous incorrect database, info is wild west database added and changed by everyone who thinks Ancestry need to ad their Family tree to a website, incorrectly linking and misspelling themselves and then linking themselves to royal families. I tried it for a year, invested time to enter our family tree, tried to make it public, so anyone can see it, but the tree never was found by any search method, being logged in or logged out. It is impossible to ad titles in any shape or form, nevertheless they brag about being linked to historical databases, usually filled with only royal names... only!. For in the past only the wealthy people, usually blue blooded could afford to read and write and leave historical documents behind anyway. It is not fully PC nor Mac nor ipad nor iphone nor Android compatible really, there is always a glitch which makes one stop being able to use it. Always when one wants to ad info or correct info in the tree, thats when it happens that software glitch... Inviting family members to a tree never worked at all, the other party could never manage to follow the many steps to eventually access the tree. These Coders (that the guys who do the programming) should be all replaced with people who actually know what they are doing. At the end of the day, i have a tree there, which only myself can look at properly on my computer at home, none of my family members could ever access it from their computers at their homes, and add info and make the tree bigger. When i searched for more Ancestors, i ended up not finding accurate information, but was inundated with names which were incorrectly written up, birth and death dates were false, locations were false, one had to guess this must be one ancestor, but it turned out someone in nowhere country made this data up,... so forget finding your ancestors on this website, you will only find Junk info from illiterate people out there, and the historical databases the claim they have, are freely accessible only if you go there directly, but ancestry will charge you an arm and a leg for info coming from those libraries, if you want to access that info from within the ancestry website, info which turns out to be false almost 10 out of 10 times, when using ancestry.com website searches. Support is incompetent and never even speak your language... i wonder where they get money from, they should have gone bankrupt a long time ago... looking at that track record of the site and what it claims to be able to do, but it fails to do at the end of the day

The best way to describe this company is to say Ancestry are thieves.

My wife bought a DNA sample test kit from these guys back in July 2018. The goods came to NZ, I sent the test away and it took some time to return with the results.

To cut to the point. Exactly $797.34 has been stolen from our account by this company over an 11 month period. The bank details made to purchase the initial DNA test was used to deduct further transactions. To make matters worse there was no paper trail whatsoever. Nothing telling us this money had been coming out. Moreover in our account the transactions appeared as a eftpos transaction and didn't list their company name.

This came as a shock to us as we were on holiday when we noticed a lump sum come out. We emailed back and forth. They completely dodged all the questions and responsibility. The first email even said "I'm sorry these transactions were not from us, perhaps it was a third party"

We managed to get back 1 payment they stole, however there is still over 500 dollars outstanding that they say we will not be refunded.

I would not recommend this company to anyone. The sheer dishonest practice is disgusting. I wish that we had never supported this outfit.
There are many other companies to chose from and these guys will not be your only option.

This brings me to the conclusion,
If you are signing up to this ancestry test outfit, you may be buying this as a gift for your friend or family. Be wary, they are not a trustworthy company.

In a separate review done earlier, I commented about Ancestry in general, since Ancestry moved to 'New' Ancestry. I will make one general comment now, that 'New' Ancestry continues to have lots of problems. It is a poor substitute to the product that was in place till last December.

Up to today I haven't have the technical difficulties others have had. But today I had a serious issue. I tried to use the online function to submit a Help request. Guess what: the online support submission form error'ed out twice, would not go through.

Reluctantly I called the customer support number. 22 minutes waiting, all the time listening to their commercials. Finally got the operator, who was pleasant enough, no use complaining a lot to her, she doesn't run the (pitiful) company. She though could not resolve my problem, a ticket had to be submitted to the developers. Who knows when my problem will be fixed. She did though get in a personal commercial seeing that my renewal was coming up, about how I could take advantage of other Ancestry offerings. The one I have has problems, and they want be to bite off more...

Ancestry does have great libraries of information. Never lose track though that they are a MARKETING COMPANY, selling stuff. Don't pay a lot of attention to the slick TV shows or the commercials, Ancestry doesn't care squat about you the customer and your family history. You are $$$ only to them.

UPDATE 6/22/2016

Customer Support is non-existent. If one sends an email to their Support email address, auto reply is provided with directions to fill ou an online form. IT DOESN'T WORK! Try calling their Support about a tree technical issue, get put on hold for up to 20 to 25 minutes, and then get an operator who doesn't know squat except to say that the problem will be submitted to the developers for investigation. AND THEN NOTHING WILL EVER HAPPEN, YOUR PROBLEM WILL NOT GET FIXED. Watch their TV show, watch their advertizing BUT DO NO BUY THEIR PRODUCTS!

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 Ancestry 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.

I purchased the Family Tree Maker Program 1 when it first came out. Did what I could with it, then when Ancestry linked to FTM I bought it and have had it since, the full World Subscription. Have had a lot of success until 6 1/2 months ago. In trying to research a certain family connection, I ended up with over 12000 people in my "tree" and the program started to work funny. Contacted Ancestry. The nice Man/Rep said I had problems because the program was not set up for that vast a number of people. Suggestions: I had 2 trees going, All My Family & Searching for Adam and Eve. Searching etc was the large collection. He suggested that I create a new tree, Searching for Adam and Eve, move over only the people I wanted to keep and then he helped me "delete" the Big Searching etc & All My family. Since that time I started to get hints/leaves on more than 50% of my people. When activating the hint it referred to my one or two Old trees, ie Searching etc and/or All My Family, sometimes one sometimes both. The message I got was that the tree was not available... please recheck later. So that continued until Jan. I called Ancestry many times, and never could get help. Just try this try that, which had already been done, then "I'm emailing you a link for you to try." Nothing ever changed until Jan 2014. I continued to get the same hints, but now Ancestry did not reference my old trees, they just said this tree is not available... try again later. Calls since then have been wasted. I keep getting told that things would change with the next update. Spent 2 hours with s lady 2 weeks ago, she said it was my computer. That cannot be, because I have a "cousin" that shares much of the same family with me. We can go thru her leaves and they are the same as mine with the same message, which she too has been getting since October. I even put a complaint on Facebook, I got a reply to contact them thru FB message, not on the home page. I did this and have "chatted" back and forth several times, no help, then they just started ignoring me. Last info I got form that was that they did an update late March... nothing has changed. Again I have to say, I have been paying the $300 something for the World Subscription for several years. You would think someone there would think I am worth something. I want to add that I spoke to one man for over an hour, he said he would have a programmer call me, right that never happened. Folks I talk to at ancestry keep saying they are not seeing the leaves I see. I went thru all my people with last name of A, I have 220 names, 60 of them had the bad hint. On the "B" people I have 493 and 227 have the bad hints. I have explained this to them, and have gotten not response other then that they have so many files that it takes time to update, be patient. Don't you thaink 6 1/2 months is patient enough?

Limited data base in Asia region. I wanted to find out what is the specific ancestral region I belong to; instead, I received results stating "East Asia" which includes "Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Palau" (copied directly from Ancestry website results). Ridiculous, right? I don't think that is sufficient information for $100 Ancestry ask for their test. The company does not disclose to public the fact that data from that part of the world is not available to them in the amount sufficient to break it down into more specific regions. I called customer service to claim at least partial refund, but after one hour spent on the phone, I was unsuccessful. They kept redirecting me from manager to manager and not answering questions directly. Although they admitted over the phone that they don't have enough data from Asia to break it down into more details as they do in other parts of the world, they said that they will not refund me. Such a fraud. I could have just threw $100 in a trash cane because the data they provided me with was not even supplemental to what I already knew.

Ancestry used to be a upstanding company Recently Ancestry have completely changed the entire format of the family research experience and even the way our personal family trees appear. Firstly I am and have been paying a yearly subscription rate to have complete access to all the records etc this program allowed me to place ancestors pictures where I want them. It was possible to add my photos and other media and attach them to certain census dates. With the new format all that is not possible. My family stories are my family stories. Ancestry has taken it upon themselves to insert certain stories and or media that pertains to a certain era in which my personal ancestor was living. I didn't give them permission to make these stupid changes and if I choose to research what was occurring in the world when a specific ancestor was living I w I'll do the research and add it! They need to stop messing with people's family trees. They have also. Hanged the color to a horrid grY that after about ten minutes of reading my eyes are so weary. This color is bad and can't be good for the eyes. This new site is cumbersome and difficult to navigate and not user friendly again I didn't pay for this. I paid for the old classic ancestry. All the joy has been taken from family research. I am ready to quit. When I personally have let ancestry know about things that I didn't like... I was told all I do is whine and don't explain what I didn't like. I have numerous times and I was told if I don't like it I can leave! Well that is not good business! Who tells customers to go away? There are many people that are working for and spokespersons for ancestry who are haughty and hateful, self righteous non helpful people! They certainly have no work ethics. In fact my opinion is ancestry has lost all good ethics and are only interested in becoming a bigger money grubbing corporation! I used to tell anyone I talked to how wonderful this company was no more though. I would NOT recommend ancestry to anyone -- they don't care about furthering family research they have another agenda. They are not listening to their customers who are serious researchers. We want the classic. It works! They should at least give those people who want classic the choice instead of forcing the new on us!

I received the DNA kit for Christmas and was very interested in what that would reveal. I signed up for an account and mailed in sample in first week of Feb then received results in 2nd week of April. Nothing groundbreaking. Western European. What did interest me was who my family tree is connected to and getting in touch with other members that could be potential relatives. Can't do any of that unless you want to buy their upgrades. Basically, I can view the family tree I created for myself and see other peoples names that could be a connection. This site is a scam. Their commercials show people finding old relatives and such,-- only if you want to fork out more money. You can do almost nothing without the upgrades. I think that at a minimum, you should be able to see and message other members. The trees that you create is your own work, Ancestry did none/little of that work. I want other people to be able to see my tree and contact me for *FREE*. Almost everything you click on in the site takes you to a upgrade page. I don't want to become a genealogist, I just want to see folks that might be related to me.

Buyers be aware! Ancestry notes that Ancestry take their customer service and any complaints seriously. Then if they take complaints seriously then why is their response to everything the same "Canned" response over and over of call customer service and speak with them?

On June 30th, I called to inquire about my question. After a 45 minutes conversation with an associate and going back and forth, I asked to speak with their manager, I was told that Ancestry "does not have managers." The associate then hung up on me.

After being hung up on, I called back waiting 30 minutes in que to speak with someone then asked to speak with a manager. The associate argued with me and told me that she was in charge of ancestry and "how she is dying to make my dreams come true". I got so frustrated that I ended up hanging up.

On other occasions on June 30th, July 1st and July 10th, when I asked to speak with a manager, I was put on hold for 2-hours waiting to speak with a manager only to be told, "they could not be bothered with customer's petty issues".

Ancestry needs to get their act together, they need to stop responding with "Canned" responses and they need to take time to actually resolve the issue. The time they spend with the "canned" response could actually be used to help solve customer issues. Buyers be aware of their treatment.

Ancestry.com is one of the most useful genealogy paysites. I have the full membership which gives me access to every record Ancestry have. Since I am based in Europe, the annual charge is 199 Euro, which is a bit pricey. They do not have nearly as many original records for European countries as they have for the US, though. As a European, Ancestry.com will be most useful if you have American relatives and you want to research the branches of your family tree on the other side of the Atlantic. I would estimate that on average, I am able to find about 5-10 original records for every American in my family tree (depending of course on how long a person lived). Ancestry.com add tons of data every month, so the site is worth re-visiting over and over. Lately, they added city directories for most of the places I am interested in.

The interface to view original record images has been "updated" recently. Not a good idea, since it uses flash and crashes quite regularly on Firefox. You can still choose the older interface under the "Options" tab, which will perfectly do the job.

The search interface could be more sophisticated, but it allows for wildcards (not a given on many other sites). If you complain about too many irrelevant search results, simply use "exact" search or give more detailed information on the person you are looking for.

One con I would mention is the questionable quality of many user-submitted family trees. But you cannot really blame Ancestry.com for being so popular that they attract a lot of - let's say, not very diligent "researchers". The problem with the global village are the village idiots, as they say...

There is a cancellation link in your account, but it has not worked for me in the last 3 years. It goes into a continual online thinking process.
When you subscribe, there is no choice but to take a subscription that auto renews.
I like to take a 6-month subscription during the winter months when I am most likely to research. I carefully calendar my subscription expiry date to alert 72 hours before the expiry date (based on my own and other peoples previous experience).
My current World Heritage subscription has just expired and despite me attempting to cancel online numerous times, and despite my contacting them via an online email link, Ancestry still took my money. I have since received the following (partial email) response:
"Thank you for contacting Ancestry in regard to trying to cancel your subscription.
We are sorry to hear you no longer wish to continue with your membership and we hope you have enjoyed your time with us. Your subscription has been cancelled immediately and you will have no further billing from Ancestry. Since you contacted us before it renewed, I was also able to give you a full refund. We have issued a refund of $249.99 AUD to the account that was billed originally. It can take up to 10 business days for your financial institution to post this amount to your account".
I will now need to wait up to 10 days to see whether I will receive a refund.
The refund is not why I am writing this review. This has happened to me before and to several family members and acquaintances. I have helped several people to contact Ancestry Support for their refunds. The customer support process is difficult to negotiate and, in my opinion, deliberately designed as a deterrent to cancelling.
I think that most ancestry users are likely to be 60+ years of age.
Before you purchase, I would like you to think how many people out there that have auto renewing subscriptions and lack the knowledge or will to do so.
Ancestry has poor reviews compared to other ancestry sites. Reading through other people's reviews, I concluded that most positive reviews are from newer users who are enamoured with discovering their heritage and new family members. When you read the negative reviews, you will discover users who struggle for ancestry support, subscription issue etc.
If you read Trustpilot reviews, you will see that in most cases a carefully conscripted response that points the blame back at you. Will I get one?
Next winter I will purchase a MyHeritage subscription.
A message for Ancestry:
Your response to reviews tells me you are not listening to your customer base.
Overhaul your online customer support process and make it user friendly. In my case, I just wanted the online cancellation link to work as it should and confirmation that process worked.

The way the site works is that you have to pay an up front annual amount, but the wording on their web site indicates you can cancel at a later date and still receive a refund.
The site is deceptive as it does not make clear the fact that you will not receive a refund if you don't cancel within the very short period from the time of taking out the subscription. It does not clearly state that you will not receive a refund if you pay the annual amount and you cancel after two months for example.
I was hoping to find old class mates. Out of twenty searches, using name and age it found not one. Even those who had passed away, three former students, not one was found. It was totally useless.
Having paid $215 it was a complete waste of money and very disappointing as a search tool.
I contacted them and even though Ancestry would know I used the site in a very limited fashion, and it also failed to deliver, they would not offer any refund at all. This web site is based in typical American aka Microsoft greed style of taking peoples money deceptively, and is happy to receive $215 for about 2 hours use of their data base. $215 allows you to use the site for 24 hours a day for 365 days. I used it for 2 hours. If you rang a small business in Australia for a refund under similar circumstances you'd probably get it. Having had previous experience in business with American companies it is no wonder "the world hates America" - it's been ripping the rest of us off forever and it does not care.
See also post 20/09/2011 by Don at http://www.geneabloggers.com/ancestrycom-scam-common-misperceptions/

"I am an Ancestry subscriber and I love it, but I think what they're doing with the monthly/yearly business is pretty sleazy and really hurts their reputation."