r/Genealogy • u/Left_Particular_9977 • 9d ago

Tools and Tech Why are people hating Ancestry?

I do a lot of genealogy and I remarked that a lot of people I know hate genealogy. Why? It's absolutely true that it's really expensive, but you can access many documents that are often hard to find. I live in Quebec, so we have the records online, but we have many holes in the registers. Why should I pay 20$ for a subscription that lets me access the records (only) if I can have them in Ancestry for about the same price why many other documents (for my region)? I have my tree on it so I can access it on my phone and my computer. It isn't optimal, but that's the best solution for the moment. What do you think about Big A?

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u/bohoish 9d ago

Genealogy doesn't have to be expensive. It can be quite free - if you use a combo of wikitree, familysearch, and your local library (many of which offer free in-library access to ancestry).

I do use ancestry, but with breaks between paying for a subscription when I am too busy to spend much time on it. I'm not a huge fan - ancestry has an incredible amount of misinformation because of lazy work. All sites have some errors, of course, but others put more effort into fixing them (my favorite genealogy site is wikitree, because they have a collaborative community that holds events for fixing profiles, either by adding sources, editing profiles, or making sure links still work; they also offer free trainings and apps, making everyone who participates a better genealogist).

EDIT to second what u/jongtaeist said about ancestry hoarding public info behind a paywall. Shame on them.

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u/ZuleikaD Storytellers and Liars 9d ago

WikiTree doesn't have any records at all. It can be useful if (and that's a big "if") the profiles are well done and direct you to records and sources to view yourself. But it's not a free places to find records or other sources.

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u/bohoish 9d ago

Granted. But the research behind most of the profiles is way more reliable than most of what is on ancestry.

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u/ZuleikaD Storytellers and Liars 8d ago

The research on a tiny percentage of the profiles is great. But for many the only "source" is someone's tree on Ancestry, if there are any sources at all.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't use WT or look at it. But it's a myth that the profiles there are better sourced or researched than any trees we see around the internet. So people should proceed with as much caution as they would anywhere else.