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My folks want to give ancestry.com a try what do I need to know? (lemmy.world)

submitted 20 hours ago by singletona@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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tl;dr: Folks want to use ancestry to see where and how it goes. What do they need to know? Is there anything to avoid?

I'm not wild on the idea of submitting DNA swabs for a lot of reasons, the recent issues with genealogy.com's data being a great example. What of tracing family tree by liniage?

The free trial STATTS with 'sign in using the following services' I haven't gone past that point because I don't want to hand anything over til they show me where they want payment information, because free trials are seldom free and.
The payment page for full signups constnatly 'reassure' that you don't have to do anything each month it auto renews. my family's gotten burned on auto renewals before where the other end basically refused to stop taking money out in spite of trying to end services.
Anyone know about the library edition how to find out what libraries have access to that and what's needed to sign in that way?

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 18 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Some thoughts, as someone who has used ancestry.com in the past:

Do NOT submit your DNA to them! If all your family wants is to trace your family back for several generations, in most cases you can do that with old-school research. Not providing DNA doesn't usually prohibit that. And as others have said, these companies are not trustworthy when it comes to being keepers of genetic information.
You are right, the free trial on ancestry.com is a hook in to get your subscription, with the hope on their end that you will forget about it and and up paying for months on end while not using their services. It's basically like a gym membership, but for history information.
That said, it's not that difficult to cancel an ancestry.com subscription. They make you jump through several screens and try to persuade your to keep it going, but it's not insurmountable, and I've cancelled and renewed and then cancelled my subscription with them a few times.
They do have an exceptional amount of genealogical information on hand, at least for Western researchers. I've found some surprising things about my ancestors on there that I couldn't find elsewhere.
For libraries and subscription level, it depends on what your needs are. They bundle them into subscription packages. If you think your ancestors have been in America for several generations I would just go with the cheaper American subscription. If you have ancestors who came from Europe a few generations back then you might want to go with a broader subscription plan that covers European sources. If you want to trace ancestors back from Africa or Asia you are going to be SOL regardless, because genealogy sources from those areas are usually very bad.
One thing to note, in case this is a problem for you: ancestry.com at least used to be owned by or managed by the LDS church (the Mormons). And they have a pretty sordid history when it comes to the exploitation of women and girls, and (like quite a few other religions) have done and continue to do some very sketchy stuff in general.

Hope this helps.