Paying Ancestry.com to Find a Family

About 10 years ago, East Long Beach native Linda retired and began looking for a task that would help her increase her on-line skills. With TV shows like “Who Do You Think You Are” on Lifetime and “Finding Your Roots” on PBS, the world of ancestry was taking shape as an on-line activity.

As with most “newbies,” Linda created her own Ancestry.com page and plugged the known family information into the site’s database. The results were encouraging. Ancestry.com gave her names and the ability to find other relatives with ease. Before she knew it, she had thousands of names of ancestors and hadn’t spent a dime on the activity.

Linda found a number of famed ancestors like Charlemagne and Ethelred the Unready, a name used several times used as a “Jeopardy” answer. And some not-so-famed, like the her second great grandfather, born out of wedlock and put into indentured servitude by his real father, who was already married and feared the scandal. With forbearers who were Anabaptists, their persecution in 16th Century Switzerland included beheadings, creating a rich tapestry.

Then, sometime after 2010, the spigot stopped. Ancestry.com no longer provided the family data Linda was used to finding, instead blocking her searches with advertisements to subscribe. Linda was pleased she had gotten the information she could, but wasn’t ready to commit to the hefty subscription fees Ancestry.com charged.

As a Christmas gift, a relative gave her a six month subscription, so Linda went back to work to get as much information she could until time ran out. The information was based solely on what other members had entered on those also in her family tree and some of it was helpful, but some was embarrassingly bad or misleading. Some people born in the 600s had children born in the 1800s and other members copied these mistakes without any analysis. She had to take these gaffes into consideration as to what to use and what not to use, knowing that even one mistake like this could corrupt her whole database.

However, despite these not-infrequent glitches, Linda was able to clean up her database and create families that did not appear anywhere else on the Ancestry site. “I think Ancestry should award scholarships to users that have added much previously unknown content to these histories,” said Linda. “Except for the DNA opportunity and the right to view other people’s work, I don’t see the advantage of a membership,” said Linda, who doesn’t want her DNA in a database available to the government through a warrant. “I’ve read of those investigated based on a close DNA match.”

Linda bemoaned the original Ancestry.com policy of sharing ancestors gave way to something called “U.S. discovery,” which costs $19.99 a month or $99 for every six months. “World explorer,” which gives access to worldwide databases costs $149 for every six months and “All access” costs $199 every six months.

In Ancestry.com, there are grandparents who become cousins, uncles or aunts. Linda’s 38th great grandfather, Elak the Hun, born in 416 had a father, Attila the Hun, born in 392, whom she expected to be her 39th great grandfather. However, Ancestry.com switched him to the role of husband of her 38th great-grandmother, which in turn, cut off her lineage as his father, Muniak is shown as the father-in-law of her 38th great-grandmother. Linda wondered if there was any fix to this problem.

The old saying, GIGO (garbage in equals garbage out) applies. Some Ancestry.com members who share relatives have not really checked out their information, like absurdly disparate dates on close relatives or birth and death locales such as British Columbia, Indiana and Arkansas, long before America was discovered. Linda wondered if Ancestry.com has proposed fixes with these problems so that others do not perpetuate the errors.

Linda sought out alternate sites, discovering Find-A-Grave, which is very helpful, but was recently acquired by Ancestry.com. Geni.com tracks some names that she couldn’t find on Ancestry.com. Sometimes found in the hints section of relatives, Web: Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015 leads to https://www.genealogieonline.nl with names shown in the Dutch language. Best thing, all these sites are free to use, for now at least, and somewhat more reliable than some Ancestry.com member-supplied databases.

After several attempts at contacting Ancestry.com for comment, public relations specialist Camille Penrod answered, “We won’t be able to connect you with a spokesperson.” She then offered several generic Ancestry.com online postings such as claiming 100 million family trees and 75 million searches daily as answers to questions posed, none of which answered Linda’s specific questions.

As double checking the information against other sources was not fool proof, Linda attended several meetings with the very local Questing Heirs group, which meets at the Masonic Hall near Heartwell Park and found like-minded people in search of their own roots, who gave her helpful tips. Linda’s online ancestry search continues.

 steve@beachcomber.news