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Hi all, I recently signed on with a friend to a "family plan" which is an excellent deal if there are enough people sharing the cost. Here is Ancestry's official help page about it:?.?
I was not fully aware of what cancelling my current plan would do, and have some suggestions about what you might want to consider and actions you can take in advance to make the transition easier if you decide to do it.
First, if you use the Chrome browser and Gmail, as I do, it is possible to create an alternate form of your email which Ancestry.com will accept as "new" for the purposes of creating a new account. There is now way to seamlessly transfer the account you now have to the new plan, which is unfortunate. The email I used before was " valorie.zimmerman@...." The "new" one is " ValorieZimmerman+Ancestry@...." I don't know if other email providers have an equivalent way that Ancestry accepts, but I do have a new working account with that longer email.?
But, I immediately lost access to my old account once I clicked "cancel" and accepted?my invitation. This is not what I expected, since normally when you cancel, it only means that it will not auto-renew.
All was not lost, though! The next day I visited a friend who offered to help me with my Swedish research; I'm 1/4 Swedish. When I opened my travel laptop to Ancestry.com, it was logged into my old account! So it was Chrome locking me out, not Ancestry. Had I tried logging in after cancelling from a different browser, I could have done then what I have done today, using that little laptop.
1. Create a document accessible everywhere you will need it with the details of your account.? 2. Download a gedcom of each of your trees. 3. download your DNA data, and that of any other kits you manage.? 4. Invite your new account as editor to your old trees; make your old account an editor of your new tree as well. 5. Make your new account Manager of each DNA kit over which you have control,?including your own.?
It is possible that making a tiny new tree is good enough, and leaving your DNA kits linked to your old tree would be fine, once you are editor using your new account. But I had already uploaded an old gedcom, and since I have ProTools, I can use that to merge duplicate profiles, check for other errors, etc. So far, so good there. It did mean I needed to re-invite?some folks to the new tree.?I named my new tree?ZimmermanCowanNew so I wouldn't confuse them. Old one is named?ZimmermanCowan11-11-2017.
One wrinkle is that the Valorie Zimmerman who manages the DNA kit of Valorie Zimmerman, is not seen by Ancestry as the tester. I don't know if this will make a difference long-term or not. And I don't know what will happen with messages sent to my old account once it reverts to "free account" status. I have a feeling I may have to buy a new kit in order to get those cool new DNA hints in the tree and profiles.?
Has anyone else done this? If so, did you have a different experience? I would be interested to hear about it.
All the best,?
Valorie
-- she/her. "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them." -?Marcus Aurelius
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That was good to know and thank you for sharing Valorie.
I think there are a lot of changes and more to come with Ancestry and it is not necessarily to my personal liking. You once could cancel your subscription? and not lose anything. Now I have seen that you have to pay to keep the files 'alive', there are different
actions, but this hit me, as I often cancelled for 3 months then restarted when a deal came up. Or cancelled and let it use up my paid amount to restart on the new deal.
I do give tree access, as guest or admin role to people. I in turn have access rights to two other DNA's, not mine and I manage my partners DNA on my own access, including trees. I also share my subscription now with my cousin. She logs on to my account. No
need for me to buy a family account under the circumstances. Obviously, with this, I disabled the two step verification. I change the password often.
It just seems to me to be more money oriented, adding new tools, but user pays. Eg Pro Tools. Newspapers etc. I think ANcestry is not cheap and adding these costs for some tools, is a slap in the face, they used to be there for access with your normal subscription
(might have been certain ones).
It concerns me, what will happen in the future to my DNA and others I manage if I cancel my subscription. Best to download copies to your computer. Just in case.
ANyway, just my experience.
Lynn Cheshire Cat in Oz
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thank you for this, Valorie! ?My question to you: ?Was the cost savings "worth it" it you?
?
Back in September 2024 I posted a question about your topic to this group:
1) I have like 10 Ancestry trees, for my friend, my daughter's boyfriend's family, and even for a neighbor, would I be able to keep all of those and be sure no one deletes my trees
2) Some distant family members have Shared their trees and their research with me, so I have constant access to their trees, would I still be able to do that without those folks getting a warning or anything that something has changed
3) like if we were to separate the plans yet again, can I still have all of my trees just like now?
4) I manage the DNA for me, my mother, my husband, and a distant Irish cousin who lives in Australia, will I be able to continue to manage those with no problems
5) when people reach out to me through AncestryDNA or even Ancestry, would the email go to the person who is paying the bill or would each of us still basically have separate accounts and people can find us as individuals
Question #5 is most important for me regarding hearing from connections who find me on AncestryDNA, and if anyone has personal experience with Ancestry's Family Plan. ?
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I am so worried about a change adversely affecting me, I don't think I want to try it, but do you think you will be glad that you did??
~Kim
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Ancestry is owned by Blackstone, which is an asset accumulation and investment company, which, until Ukraine, loaned money to Russia. It claims it no longer does so.
It has one goal - to make obscene amounts of money.
?
When Ancestry came on the market it was seen as a very profitable cash cow so they bought it.
?
Their only interest in family history is to do enough to encourage people to join and test their DNA so they can keep the profits up.
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This is as reported by various sources who have checked out the motives of Ancestry.
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We are all up against the wall and it would behove us to return to the ways we did this before the internet. Penny
Ancestry is owned by Blackstone, which is an asset accumulation and investment company, which, until Ukraine, loaned money to Russia. It claims it no longer does so.
It has one goal - to make obscene amounts of money.
?
When Ancestry came on the market it was seen as a very profitable cash cow so they bought it.
?
Their only interest in family history is to do enough to encourage people to join and test their DNA so they can keep the profits up.
?
This is as reported by various sources who have checked out the motives of Ancestry.
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Come on:) We all know each other. Let's get on with it :)
On Sun, 13 Apr 2025 at 00:13, Penny Trueman via <pennytrueman99= [email protected]> wrote: We are all up against the wall and it would behove us to return to the ways we did this before the internet. Penny
Ancestry is owned by Blackstone, which is an asset accumulation and investment company, which, until Ukraine, loaned money to Russia. It claims it no longer does so.
It has one goal - to make obscene amounts of money.
?
When Ancestry came on the market it was seen as a very profitable cash cow so they bought it.
?
Their only interest in family history is to do enough to encourage people to join and test their DNA so they can keep the profits up.
?
This is as reported by various sources who have checked out the motives of Ancestry.
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Ken and Penny I heartily agree.? ?Maureen
On ,Sun Apr 13 2025 09:10:15 GMT+1000 (Australian Eastern Standard Time), Ken Doughty via groups.io <sbdfhs@...> wrote:
---------- Original Message ----------
Ancestry is owned by Blackstone, which is an asset accumulation and investment company, which, until Ukraine, loaned money to Russia. It claims it no longer does so.
It has one goal - to make obscene amounts of money.
?
When Ancestry came on the market it was seen as a very profitable cash cow so they bought it.
?
Their only interest in family history is to do enough to encourage people to join and test their DNA so they can keep the profits up.
?
This is as reported by various sources who have checked out the motives of Ancestry.
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On 4/12/2025 16:10, Ken Doughty via groups.io wrote: Ancestry is owned by Blackstone, which is an asset accumulation and investment company Actually, jointly owned by Blackstone,, AND GTC Private, a sovereign wealth fund of the Singapore government.
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As time goes on I¡¯ve come to the opinion that putting all your eggs in any kind of computery basket is a really bad idea. This in spite of (or maybe because of) working in IT for decades.
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Online subscription systems are a money-makers dream - build, run, and watch the money pour in. Please don¡¯t give me some BS about development and running costs, the profits far outweigh those.
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Ancestry (or the other sites for that matter) don¡¯t give a fig about gung-ho ¡®researchers¡¯ grabbing whatever ¡®suggestions¡¯ are thrown at them (oh, the joys of the database!) and assembling them into some kind of mish-mash. And when that interpretation is online it becomes gospel and propogates. I find that very disheartening when compared to the work done by more manual means in the past. It¡¯s kind of ruined it for me.
?
I would try not to get locked into online systems. Buy a family tree program (hurrah, something you actually own!) - or get a free one - that you can use on your local machine that can export GEDCOMs. You can then change software if you like, and future generations will at least be able to access the bones of your research.
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Ancestry.com was founded by genealogists, and is still staffed by genealogists. However, Blackstone does own a majority stake, and thus they do make many major decisions. As long as Americans continue to accept that corporations exist solely to make profits for shareholders, this is how the system will run.?
It was not always like this--corporations used to have to justify their existence?to the state where they incorporated, by showing how their business helped the citizens of that state. This is a decision that we the people can change. Ralph Nader spent much of his career trying to get the profit motive reduced, without much success.
Selling DNA kits does not make companies money--that is what has brought 23andMe to bankrupcy. They have to provide services that people will continue to pay for to be profitable. 23andMe didn't look ahead, read the tea leaves. and provide those services to us genealogists. We could have kept it afloat, had they served us well.
Ancestry does not get most of their datasets for free. They either have to invest, as they did to index the 1950 Census to us in record time, or they have to buy or lease them. If we want them to continue to provide that for us, we'll have to pay for it. I can afford it, so I'm happy to do that.
FamilySearch makes it look like it can be done for free. However, they are run by a church, so they have cash and labor contributions behind them to keep the value coming. By improving their FS Family Tree, we are contributing. Again, because it's free, I think my work there is worth it, and I am not a church member. It is volunteers who do all the microfilming, by the way.?
The other source of information to us is our governments; they are supported by our tax dollars, along with some volunteer work. For instance, my state of Washington has wonderful digital archives, and volunteers do a great deal of the indexing.?
So all of it costs something to somebody!
Valorie
Ancestry is owned by Blackstone, which is an asset accumulation and investment company, which, until Ukraine, loaned money to Russia. It claims it no longer does so.
It has one goal - to make obscene amounts of money.
?
When Ancestry came on the market it was seen as a very profitable cash cow so they bought it.
?
Their only interest in family history is to do enough to encourage people to join and test their DNA so they can keep the profits up.
?
This is as reported by various sources who have checked out the motives of Ancestry.
-- she/her. "Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them." -?Marcus Aurelius
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Rootsmagic is free and cheap to upgrade.
It will download your tree and media from Ancestry, and your part of the Familysearch Tree. It has lots of features including creating GEDCOMs, which you can then upload to Gedmatch to create a tree. Gedmatch also has a feature where you can upload your Familysearch Tree direct to it, as well.
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I mainly use Ancestry for original sheets.?
My first choice to research anybody is the Familysearch App and I use Ancestry to confirm findings, but only if necessary.
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There is a UK Census Project and a 1939 Register Project being run on Familysearch which creates tree entries for persons shown. The only disadvantage is it creates duplicates and enters names as read by the transcriber.
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I use Familysearch, Rootsmagic, a ten year old FTM program and only use Ancestry because I have an old half price link that still works, and it has my DNA, although the lack of trees and no response from Matches is incredibly frustrating.
?
?
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Familysearch is the best source. Unfortunately, I have noticed less original English records on entries, now. I suspect this is a move to encourage people to join FindmyPast.
As far as the US is concerned, it has original census sheets and lots more, whilst original English census records are licensed to paying concerns, so only transcripts are shown on Familysearch.
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The App is incredible. I monitor it and report problems direct to the Developers and have had lots of Thank Yous from them.
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I have changed or created over 46,000 Familysearch entries since 2022 and attached thousands of records and merged thousands of duplicates.
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I am certain, if every researcher put their tree on Familysearch, corrected any errors and uploaded documents, photos and audio to their entries, most paysites would be forced to lower their fees.
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Why would FamilySearch encourage people to join FindmyPast?? Are there any advantages to joining Findmypast over Ancestry?? Like records that aren't there?
Dora
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Show quoted text
On 4/13/25 4:13 AM, Ken Doughty via groups.io wrote: Familysearch is the best source. Unfortunately, I have noticed less original English records on entries, now. I suspect this is a move to encourage people to join FindmyPast.
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Rootsmagic is free to do a certain amount.?? I use version 7.0
and love it.
The more recent versions require Windows 10 or 11 to work.? I use
Ubuntu, and rootsmagic 7 with Wine.
Dora
On 4/13/25 3:34 AM, Ken Doughty via
groups.io wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Rootsmagic is free and cheap to upgrade.
It will download your tree and media from Ancestry, and your
part of the Familysearch Tree. It has lots of features including
creating GEDCOMs, which you can then upload to Gedmatch to
create a tree. Gedmatch also has a feature where you can upload
your Familysearch Tree direct to it, as well.
?
I mainly use Ancestry for original sheets.?
My first choice to research anybody is the Familysearch App
and I use Ancestry to confirm findings, but only if necessary.
?
There is a UK Census Project and a 1939 Register Project
being run on Familysearch which creates tree entries for persons
shown. The only disadvantage is it creates duplicates and enters
names as read by the transcriber.
?
I use Familysearch, Rootsmagic, a ten year old FTM program
and only use Ancestry because I have an old half price link that
still works, and it has my DNA, although the lack of trees and
no response from Matches is incredibly frustrating.
?
?
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I would guess that they are hoping we will do reasonably exhaustive research,?which means looking at any record that may provide information to address our research questions. For research I'm doing in northern England now, for instance, Find My Past has much better coverage for some record groups. Each of these services (FamilySearch, Ancestry, FindMyPast, etc.) is a digital repository, and we need to check the catalog of each to see who has the record groups we need. If we equate that to wanting to read a specific book, it might not be in our local library. We might have to go to another library to get it. (In that instance, we might use WorldCat to find a copy.)
Jen
On Sun, Apr 13, 2025 at 9:37?AM Dora Smith via <dora.smith.e= [email protected]> wrote: Why would FamilySearch encourage people to join FindmyPast?? Are there
any advantages to joining Findmypast over Ancestry?? Like records that
aren't there?
Dora
On 4/13/25 4:13 AM, Ken Doughty via wrote:
> Familysearch is the best source. Unfortunately, I have noticed less
> original English records on entries, now. I suspect this is a move to
> encourage people to join FindmyPast.
>
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When licensing of English parish records expires, some original images are being removed from Familysearch and are relicensed only to FMP.
Transcripts still exist on Familysearch, but they give a 'view record on FindmyPast' message, or link to a subscribe to FMP page. So the relicensing only allows viewing of originals on the paysite.
Possibly because owners are asking more in licensing fees?
?
All records are still available at LDS Family History centres AFAIK.
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Valorie Zimmerman
Ken Doughty