Canceling Ancestry Subscription? What You Need to Know First

Are you thinking of canceling your Ancestry subscription? You have questions, and in this post, you will find everything that you need to know to help make your decision.

There are many reasons that you might start to think about canceling your Ancestry subscription. Maybe you are trying to cut down on some of those automatic payments that come out of your account every month.

Alternatively, maybe you aren't as interested in family tree research as you used to be. Maybe you learned all that you wanted to know.

Or, you might just not have the time to spend on genealogy right now. It can be a time-consuming hobby, and not everyone has the time to spend enough hours on the computer each week to make an Ancestry subscription feel worthwhile.

Fortunately, I have some experience with canceling my Ancestry subscription - and resubscribing. I have done this more than once over the past decade, and below, I share what I have learned with you.

Towards the end of this post, I will share some tips that will help you in the case that you decide to go ahead and cancel your subscription. These tips will help you protect all of your hard work.

Will you lose your family tree?

No, you will not lose access to your family tree or the trees to which you have been given access. You will still be able to view and edit your family tree, as well as add photographs and documents.

Ancestry does not delete your family tree when you cancel your subscription. This is a common misconception.

When you login to your Ancestry account after your subscription is cancelled, you will still see all of the trees that you have created. There is really no limit to the number of family trees that you can have on a free Ancestry account.

What happens to your records and sources?

All of the sources and records that you attach to your family tree will still be there on your tree, but you might not be able to view them without a subscription. Anything that you directly uploaded from your phone or computer to your tree will still be accessible to you.

If this sounds confusing, let me explain.

There are two ways to attach documents, sources and photographs to your Ancestry family tree. The first way that I will explain is the easiest way, and it's where some of the confusion begins.

We can't view most linked or attached sources

If you choose to save it to your tree, or click "Yes" that the record does match the ancestor you are researching, the record is automatically attached to your tree. You don't have to download or upload anything.

When you find a record or photograph on Ancestry, you might see an option to "Save to tree". Depending on the type of record, you might only be asked if the record matches the person in your tree that you are researching.

The record, however, stays somewhere else on Ancestry and is linked or attached to your tree. It could be a photo from someone else's family tree or a birth index from an Ancestry collection, but the record will only be linked to your tree.

These are the kinds of sources that we will lose access to without an active subscription. Most sources that are only linked to our tree will still show up in the list of sources when we view our tree, but when we click to view them, we will be prompted to subscribe to Ancestry.

You will still be able to view anything that you directly uploaded

If you have directly uploaded photographs or documents to your family tree, you will still be able to view any of these sources without a subscription. Directly uploaded documents and photographs are files that you had on your computer or smartphone and uploaded to your family tree.

What about your DNA results?

Your DNA results will not disappear if you cancel your Ancestry subscription. You will still be able to login a view your DNA matches and ancestral regions report.

In addition, if new people test their DNA and it matches yours, they will show up on your DNA match list. This means that your DNA match list will continue to update and grow over time, even if you don't have an active subscription.

Even though you will still have access to your DNA results, you won't be able to see the family trees of your DNA matches without a subscription. In addition, in order to have a Pro Tools subscription, which allows for additional DNA match tools like Enhanced shared matches, you need to have an active Ancestry subscription.

What happens to your data if you cancel?

Ancestry will continue to store your data if you cancel your subscription. Your DNA results, if applicable, as well as your family tree, sources attached to your tree, file uploads, and account activity will not be automatically deleted.

If you want Ancestry to delete all of your data, you need to follow these instructions on deleting your account. It's important to note that deleting your Ancestry account will delete all of your trees, DNA results, and any other personal data, possibly erasing years of your work.

Can you just cancel temporarily?

Yes, you can temporarily cancel your subscription. In fact, you can cancel your subscription for months or years and activate it again when you are ready to take up genealogy research again.

Once you re-start your subscription, everything will be exactly how it was before you cancelled. You will be able to see all of your attached sources, public member trees, and more.

Steps to take before canceling your subscription

If you have decided to cancel your subscription, there are a few steps that you can take to make sure that you protect all of the research that you have already done.

Back up your tree

Backing up your Ancestry tree is always a good idea, but it's especially important to do so if you think you will be taking a break from your research for a while. While Ancestry will not delete our family trees, any number of things could happen that could cause us to lose access to our data.

Download and/or print sources and records

During the course of your family history research, you may have located a great number of genealogy records. If you haven't downloaded these items (and only linked/attached them to your tree), you could lose access to them if you cancel your subscription.

Before you cancel, you could download the sources that are most important to your family history. Then, you could either print them out to keep a paper copy, and/or upload them to your Ancestry family tree directly.

This way, you will always have access to those sources regardless of your Ancestry subscription status.

Download your DNA data

If you are planning on taking a lengthy break from genealogy research, you should consider downloading your DNA data. You can download your raw DNA data, as well as your ethnicity estimate or ancestral regions reports.

You might also want to take screenshots of DNA matches that you are working on, and the first few pages of your DNA match lists.

Conclusion

I hope that this article has helped you understand what you will (and won't!) lose access to if you decide to cancel your subscription, as well as what happens to your tree and data.

If you have any questions about something that you read in this post, or if you would like to ask a specific question that wasn't addressed, I would love to hear from you in the discussion below.

Thanks for reading today!