Complaint Review: ancestry.com - Internet Internet

While I have my own issues from time to time with Ancestry.com, mostly dealing with speed and freeze-ups, finding information hasn't been one of them. I have not tried to cancel, and to the contrary have only upgraded to international access, which I have used quite often. I therefore would not know about cancellation problems.

In 24 hours it is impossible to get familiar with all of the workings of the site. I have been on there for over a year now and have found tons of information and added numerous branches to my tree. I have also been in contact with several people who are members and we share information. The pictures we all share are priceless. I have pictures of my family that were shared by people that I have never seen, and would never have seen, if it weren't for Ancestry.com. They also share in my pictures.

I have the advantage, perhaps, of having worked on genealogy for about 20 years so that I know what some of the pitfalls are. You can never just take other people's information at face value, but then you can't do that if you travel hundreds of miles to the genealogy library either. People put wrong information in their family trees!  

One person has Charlemagne married to a woman born in 1918 or some such. Apparently that person does not see how rediculous this is although most people look at it and shake their heads in disbelief. There are people like that anywhere you go and Ancestry is no different. Like any research, sometimes you find that you are on the wrong path and have to start over. Any information found from other peoples family trees should only be view as a possibility unless they have the records already available to back it up. 

As for complaints about information on living people. This wouldn't be the fault of Ancestry.com. I can go to People Search, PIPL, and several other sites to put together whole families of living people. I found a relative's whole family laid out for me on photo bucket even though I had never met any of them. I put his family together and then invited him to my tree to show how much of his life is right there on the web. This is our new information based world.

CRAPPY customer "service"!

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I used their service for 2 years and extensively researched my family tree....you'd be surprised what falls out of it. :)

I found their service to be as accurate as could be expected from multiple databases.  Never had any problems with billing, either.  They allow a 14 day trial and if not cancelled, you are billed for the service term you selected when you signed up for the trial.  24 hours and one wrong listing is by no means a thorough search for your genealogy.  Multiple records need to be researched to catch mistakes and name mis-spelling in census records.

Before I'm accused of working for them, among many other companies I've been told I must work for, I don't.  Unless their service has changed substantially, you should give it a fair trial.   Good luck to you.