Ancestry Review : Best DNA Test for Ancestry

What is Ancestry?

You’ve probably seen the ads for Ancestry where users share their stories of discovering long-lost relatives and learning more about their family’s past.

While you may not find out that you’re descended from royalty or distantly related to a famous historical figure, Ancestry is a great resource for building a family tree and filling out missing information, such as birthplaces and marriage records of long-lost relatives.

This Editors’ Choice-winning genealogy software also lets you collaborate with other family members to build family trees. Best of all, its intuitive interface makes it easy for you to learn all of its features and construct your family history in no time.

Pricing, Plans, and Setup

Ancestry offers a few plans to choose from: The basic U.S. Discovery plan I signed up for is $19.99 per month or $99 for every six months.

The World Explorer plan, which includes U.S. and international records, costs $34.99 per month or $149 for six months; and the All Access plan ($44.99 per month or $199 per half year) includes access to all records on Ancestry, Newspapers.com, and Fold3.com (a military records site).

You can dip your toe into the water with a 14-day free trial, though I initially had trouble finding that offer on the company’s website. You will have to supply a credit card number for the free trial, though, so be sure keep on top of that; your account will automatically renew to the paid plan if you do nothing after that period.

Helpfully, your trial’s expiration date is displayed on your home screen. You can cancel the trial online or by calling customer service.

Building Family Trees

If you choose to start from scratch, which I did, the easiest way to begin is by creating your own record. Ancestry says most of their records are from before 1930, so it recommends adding someone born before that time to get the ball rolling.

As you add more family members, you start to receive hints in the form of little shaking leaves; click on the leaf and you can view available public records such as birth, death, marriage and census information that may match up to your relatives. It’s up to you to confirm whether it’s legit or not.

As I added my parents and their parents to the tree, shaking leaves started appearing, including one that contained my date of birth and my address in 1994. After adding my mother, the hints led me to add two of her five siblings and her mother (my grandmother).

This was much faster than adding these relatives manually would have been. I also found a record of where my maternal grandmother was born, something I hadn’t known for sure. I even stumbled upon a family tree that another member of the family had started, which was pretty cool.

Some of the information wasn’t correct, however; you’ve got to be very careful about adding other people’s research to your tree. You can add it at the click of a button, but it’s not guaranteed to be accurate, and removing it isn’t nearly as easy.

Premium Extras

A relatively new feature is AncestryDNA ($99.99), which lets you order a DNA sample-collection kit, send in a saliva sample, and receive a DNA profile in six to eight weeks that includes an estimate of your ethnicity and matches with other DNA members.

As more people contribute to this project, AncestryDNA will continue to try to match you up with other members. If you choose to use the Genetic Communities feature (currently in beta), it can even show your ancestors’ migration path. For more information, be sure to read PCMag’s full review of AncestryDNA.

Another premium feature is the option to hire an expert to help with your genealogy research. You can get a free quote; prices start at $1,900 for 20 to 25 hours of research on one ancestor. Both of these features are unique to Ancestry in the realm of genealogy software.

Getting Help

If you need help along the way, Ancestry offers a lot of guidance online in its community and documentation. You can also call support, which is available seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET.

I did have to call Ancestry for help, but oddly enough, it was when I ran into an issue downloading Family Tree Maker and was referred from their support line.

I called in the middle of the day and was told there was a “high volume of calls,” which, come to think of it, is the message I get just about every time I call customer service. I didn’t get a time estimate, but I was subjected to the usual trying hold music, interrupted by loud ads for other Ancestry services.

After about 30 minutes, my call was finally picked up by an agent, who was very helpful and resolved my issue in about five minutes. Any other issues I ran into were easily solved by using the online resources.

A Fun and Easy Way to Trace Your Roots

Ancestry provides a great way to dive into tracing your family tree, and a paid account gives you access to thousands of searchable records that can be easily added to the members of your tree for a more complete picture.

Better yet, you can export all of your data to save and share it even if you no longer have an active account. I definitely recommend Ancestry for fledgling genealogists, but the costs can add up if you’re not careful.

That said, because of its attractive and dead-simple interface and generous resources, Ancestry is our clear Editors’ Choice for genealogy software.

Once you’ve gone as far in your research as far as written records can take you, you should also consider genetic testing services, which can add all sorts of details, from living relatives to the details of your deep ancestral past—even the amount of Neanderthal DNA you carry. For more, check out our roundup of the best DNA testing kits.