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I'm curious why you think any service should be free? They are a business.
It should not be retroactive. If someone bought whatever in Ancestry which was included as free, the "now you have to pay" should apply only to new purchasers of Ancestry.
I have also seen how many things which were free in 23andme, now are exclusive for 23andme+. They have also increased the prices.
It should not be retroactive. If someone bought whatever in Ancestry which was included as free, the "now you have to pay" should apply only to new purchasers of Ancestry.
I have also seen how many things which were free in 23andme, now are exclusive for 23andme+. They have also increased the prices.
I agree, they should not take features away but they are. Last year we had the DNA via parent which was taken away after everyone spent time on it marking matches maternal or paternal. They were able to make the program better by allowing us to test it, then they go and remove it. They never said we were testing it for a trial length of time. They made it seem like we were going to get to keep it. I would not have spent the amount of time I did on it.
I loaded my ancestry matches, if I open a match, click on trees, it gives me the message that I'll need to pay to see. Same for clicking on matches. Of course I don't see anything else to click on to find out when they will do this.
I some how found that they made a new membership for DNA; AncestryDNA Plus™ membership $29.99 /6 MONTHS - Make deeper DNA discoveries with a membership. AncestryDNA Plus™ gives you access to powerful DNA inheritance tools, 40+ personal traits∞, and new features as they become available – all for one simple price.
What company would you recommend? In my experience, 23andMe is the next best option, but they have had features behind a subscription for a while now, and they don't even host public family trees. They aren't a genealogy website so many people aren't there for genealogy and personally, it's been of little use to me for that purpose.
MyHeritage I think also has DNA features behind a subscription? But even if they didn't, they don't have very reliable ethnicity reports and their database of testers is small.
FamilyTreeDNA doesn't have any subscriptions but they suffer from the same problems MyHeritage does.
LivingDNA is UK based and ethnicity reports are hit and miss if you're not British/Irish, and they have a small database that's more UK based so not ideal for everyone.
Those are the primary testing companies, none of them are better than AncestryDNA or even a good alternative (for genealogy), if you ask me. You can upload to GedMatch but you have to test at one of those companies first, plus Gedmatch has features behind a paywall too.
At least Ancestry have recently dropped the restrictions in messaging if you don't have a subscription. You can now message anyone (that has messaging enabled) and ask for an invite to view their tree. But the downside to this is now spammers and scammers can message people too.
On principle, I hate that Ancestry is removing existing features to put behind a subscription, but I already have a subscription so it doesn't influence me personally and I'm not going to give up the best genealogy resource on the internet (by far). It's not going to accomplish anything.
Ancestry is a genealogy site, 23 and me is more for health testing with DNA matching. No family trees as you mentioned. The biggest negative is that it is expensive at $199, $150 on sale and once a year it goes to $99 on black Friday. Most people can not afford to spend that kind of money on a DNA test, especially when you can't do much there. Most people have to message their matches because there are no family trees or any other DNA features to help us know how a match is related.
My Heritage is the only genealogy site besides ancestry, they do not have the large number of record sources that Ancestry has. Their test is normally $89 but it regularly goes on sale very cheap, usually under $50. Right now, it is on sale for $40 until tomorrow. You have to have at least a $99 data subscription unless you uploaded your DNA from another site like Ancestry, then it costs $29 to get the advanced DNA tools, or it did the last time I was there. I've been on My Heritage since they started offering DNA back around 2016, I'm part of their DNA founders project. I've gone from less than a handful of matches to over 6,127.
Back when a lot of us uploaded to my heritage, they gave us advanced DNA tools for free until they turned them off in January 2018 for people uploading then. They never took the full features away from anyone who uploaded before January 2018 which is what ancestry is doing, or that's what it looks like they will do, take features away.
My Heritage is based in Israel, not the US like Ancestry. They have a different user base which is more so people in Europe. Out of my 6,127 matches, 1,906 are in the US, the rest are in Europe and other countries. My Heritage is great if someone is trying to find information about relatives who immigrated to the US like both of my parents did, especially my dad where not many relatives immigrated. My mothers relatives have been here since the late 1800's, most of my ancestry matches are her relatives. Same with 23 and me, so far they all go back to her.
For most people in the US, Ancestry is the best option because of their huge US DNA database, especially since it regularly goes on sale for $59 from the regular price of $99 plus shipping.
I guess we'll have to see what we are left with when they take features away from us which is not fair since they were features that were offered when we originally bought our kits. I would be into boycotting them by doing something like turning matching off of the 13 kits I manage. Hopefully someone starts doing something like that. I'll have to look in the Ancestry FB group to see. I'd imagine there are people posting about it.
Last week I caught an article about a genealogist suing ancestry for free access to their Pennsylvania record sources. They sent a public records request to an agency in PA wanting copies of all records, they were told they do not have the records, that they "sold Ancestry the rights" to all of the records.
If you're an ancestry member in PA, you do not have to pay for a subscription to access them, but without living there, you need the subscription. The genealogist is from a group called reclaim the records. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this, I'll be surprised if they don't do it for records from other states.
What began in 2022 as a one-paragraph public records request has morphed into a full-blown court fight over who owns digital copies of Pennsylvania’s historical records.
Are they the property of the commonwealth? Or are the documents — which include birth and death certificates, veterans’ burial cards, and slave records — fully controlled by a private company?
That question has pitted a New York City-based professional genealogist against the Pennsylvania agency in charge of a vast array of historical documents and artifacts, as well as Ancestry.com, an online genealogy company used by millions of people to search for family and other records.
The genealogist is Alec Ferretti, a director at Reclaim The Records, a nonprofit that pushes governments to make genealogical information more broadly available.
But it isn’t all buildings and cemeteries. A great deal of the state’s history is information.
Pennsylvania has been the site of centuries of births, deaths, weddings, adoptions, divorces, property sales, incorporation of businesses and more. Millions of people have called the state home, creating a vast number of records.
For historians and genealogists, that could be considered a treasure.
For the state, it is apparently a burden.
In 2008, the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission entered into an agreement with Ancestry.com to digitize a long list of records — everything from prison data and Civil War information to immigration papers and military files. In total, there were 45 terabytes of information.
For context, 45 terabytes is more than 3 billion pages of information, give or take.
If you are a Pennsylvania resident, you can access the information for free on the commission’s website — a way to facilitate interest in tracing ancestry and building family trees, but only if you have an Ancestry account.
If you aren’t a Pennsylvania resident, you need an active Ancestry subscription. Normal prices for that range from $119 for six months to $259 for six months depending on how much and what kind of access is wanted.
I am thinking that MyHeritage.com might be the best alternative. I had already uploaded my Ancestry.com DNA to this site a few years ago. Its main fault is that it has a much smaller customer base, especially when it comes to Americans as noted above. This however can change if more people migrate there. I am going to suggest this to my relatives in our family genealogy group.
Last week I caught an article about a genealogist suing ancestry for free access to their Pennsylvania record sources. They sent a public records request to an agency in PA wanting copies of all records, they were told they do not have the records, that they "sold Ancestry the rights" to all of the records.
If you're an ancestry member in PA, you do not have to pay for a subscription to access them, but without living there, you need the subscription. The genealogist is from a group called reclaim the records. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this, I'll be surprised if they don't do it for records from other states.
If Ancestry did the digitization for free, then no one can complain about needing a subscription to access the records. If someone does not want to pay for the subscription, they can travel to Pennsylvania and search the original records.
I have a lot of people who share their DNA results with me. I know most of them no longer have paid memberships, but I am still able to access all the features when looking at their results. I'm assuming I'll continue to be able to have the same access even though those people are not paying themselves.
So if you don't want to pay, maybe you can find someone with a paid membership who you can share with, and see if they'll let you have access to their paid account so you can view your results.
I am thinking that MyHeritage.com might be the best alternative. I had already uploaded my Ancestry.com DNA to this site a few years ago. Its main fault is that it has a much smaller customer base, especially when it comes to Americans as noted above. This however can change if more people migrate there. I am going to suggest this to my relatives in our family genealogy group.
It depends. MyHeritage would be a heck of a lot more expensive for me because it forces an annual paid subscription. On Ancestry I usually only subscribe for a month, perhaps once or twice a year, to check out new Hints and do DNA work. Most of my records research is done off-site now so an annual subscription, although convenient, would mostly be a waste of money. I can access and work on my tree for free year round.
I some how found that they made a new membership for DNA; AncestryDNA Plus™ membership $29.99 /6 MONTHS - Make deeper DNA discoveries with a membership. AncestryDNA Plus™ gives you access to powerful DNA inheritance tools, 40+ personal traits∞, and new features as they become available – all for one simple price.
I saw that a few years ago but I thought they abandoned it because I didn't see anything more about it. I think back then it was $50/year. This does make the changes a little less outrageous. They at least are offering a more affordable option just for the DNA features, so you're not forced to pay the higher fees for access to records if you don't want that. They still shouldn't have put existing features behind the paywall though.
Last week I caught an article about a genealogist suing ancestry for free access to their Pennsylvania record sources. They sent a public records request to an agency in PA wanting copies of all records, they were told they do not have the records, that they "sold Ancestry the rights" to all of the records.
If you're an ancestry member in PA, you do not have to pay for a subscription to access them, but without living there, you need the subscription.
Maybe they've cracked down on it, but last I checked, you actually just needed to put a PA zip code into the portal to access the PA records for free on Ancestry. Officially, you were supposed to be a PA resident, but they didn't verify that, anyone from anywhere could pop any PA zip code into the portal and use it. Like I say, maybe they've cracked down on it and maybe they now check IP addresses to verify people are in PA. I can't really check it myself since I have a subscription.
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