If you have a free Ancestry.com account – i.e. a “Registered Guest” Ancestry.com account, and are trying to cancel it (because, for example, they don’t honor your “don’t send me any email” settings), you may find that it seems that you are unable to cancel it. That’s because YOU CAN’T CANCEL A FREE ANCESTRY.COM ACCOUNT! So here’s what you need to do.
We should point out that in our opinion (which is informed and educated) Ancestry.com is in violation of the Federal anti-spam law, CAN-SPAM, in a few ways, including that they do not include an unsubscribe link in their mailings at all, and their “Email preferences” link takes you to a login page where you have to enter a username and password before you can even get to the ‘preferences’ page (a clear violation of the “one-step unsubscribe” requirement of CAN-SPAM).
Now, if you have a paid account, there is a way to cancel it (after all, they’d get in trouble with the Feds if they didn’t provide a way to tell them to stop billing your credit card). But if you have a free registered guest account, you can’t cancel it.
We don’t mean that it’s really hard to find the ‘cancel’ option for your free account. We don’t even mean that they buried the option to cancel a free account so that it’s unfindable.
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We mean that you can’t cancel a free Ancestry.com registered guest account. At all.
In fact, here’s what Ancestry.com has to say about that:
Canceling a Registered Guest account
Registered Guest accounts are designed to give unlimited access to free services provided by Ancestry; therefore, there is no need to cancel these accounts. When you have concluded using your Free Registered Guest account, simply discontinue use. You will not be charged any fees when accessing a Registered Guest account from Ancestry. Some participation on Ancestry may require a paid account. For additional details on the accounts available in your area (and to what those accounts provide access), please click here.
If you are interested in finding information on canceling any Ancestry subscription to paid databases (whether you have a free trial or a paid account), please click here.
Note: We do not currently cancel Registered Guest accounts.
Did you catch that last note?? Let’s repeat it, to make sure:
“Note: We do not currently cancel Registered Guest accounts.”
For some reason we keep hearing this song in our heads:
So, how do you cancel a free registered guest account with Ancestry.com?
Well, technically you can’t. But here is what you can do that has the same effect – it cancels the account for you, even though the account still remains. You will no longer get any email for that account, and so far as you are concerned, it can be dead to you (other than, of course, all of the info that you gave them).
How to ‘Cancel’ a Free Ancestry.com Account
Log into your Ancestry.com guest account, and go to “My account” from the drop-down menu in the upper right
Click on “Update email address”
Now, change your email address to something at example.com. The reason to use “@example.com” is because that is a known test domain, so email to any address at example.com just gets blackholed (you don’t want to inadvertantly cause someone else to get spammed by ancestry.com by using, for example, a made-up Gmail address).
And because Ancestry.com also doesn’t follow best email practices, they don’t confirm that new email address.
Eventually either a conscience, best practices, or the FTC will catch up with Ancestry.com, but in the meantime this will take care of your immediate need to stop getting those damn emails from Ancestry.com.
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Receipts will come from ISIPP.
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I am trying to cancel my ancestry account.
**SOLUTION** To cancel/delete a free “Guest Membership; Log in to your account. Then look in to the address bar. You should see: [Link deleted]add “/delete” (without the quotes) and hit enter. You should now see [Link deleted]in the address bar. This may be .com or .uk whatever country you are in. To be clear you are adding a forward slash followed by the word delete, to the address which is already in the address bar, when you are in your “account” page. When I did this I was presented with the page that contains the options for you to delete your account. I chose delete and check-marked a reason, then I believe it said next steps, then it send a verification number to my email, which I had open in another tab. I then entered the verification number and hit delete. I also attempted to log in after this to verify that my username/email/password would not work. It did not work, which confirmed to me that my “account” was actually removed from the database, and is no longer found by the login system. This article is correct “It shouldn’t be this hard”. Sidenote; I tried chat, I tried phone assistance, and I tried the customersupport@ancestry.com email, all of them kept repeating to go to the “your subscription” section, which of course does not exist when you have a free “Guest Membership”.
Thank you for posting this. Using Ancestry, both paid a free versions I hesitate recommending due to my experiences leading me to believe Ancestry.com is somewhat sleazy and predatory. I’m including a link to this awesome article each time I explain how to view my tree on Ancestry and/or sign up for the first time. Thank you!
Thanks for posting this. Disgraceful ! I was hesitant about getting into this in the start! And formgood reason, I suspected this would be like a life sentence. The idea of giving these guys in free will my DNA!!!!!!! Horrifies me to my core! Now there’s the ultimate database. Forget about them having younpersonal details, people are handing over their very genetic makeup !!!! DONT DO IT!
Have an old account using an email. No longer using that account. Now am trying to create a new account using that old email and it won’t let me and I can’t bring up that account
Costa
Why I can’t cancel it.I don’t want you to send me emails anymore.Do we leave in a Dictatorship or in a free country,Cancel it now or I will report a spasm.
GOOD NEWS- EMAIL CustomerSolutions@ancestry.com AND REQUEST YOUR ACCT BE DELETED FOR PRIVACY REASONS. The rep on the phone said to be sure to indicate ‘privacy reasons’ as that would require them to delete the acct. (He offered first to put me on the ‘do not contact’ list, but I insisted on deleting the entire acct) Hope this works for you too.
I did it …hope it works! Sick to death of their emails. Also changed my username to reflect this.
These Ancestry.com people charged me twice on the same day. Having a hard time getting it refunded! Do not sign up with them. Hire a Private Investigator, it will cost just as much!
I am so tired of unsubscribing to their unsolicited emails only to still have them clogging my email account. Thank you for the tip. I have also deleted everything remotely personal on my account – I have even changed my user name to reflect I want to unsubscribe.
Gad, I sure hope this works. I had tried to manage email on my system and still kept getting emails from these clowns. I think Ancestry’s email shows as ancestry.com but it is really something else hidden, if that’s possible. I had originally signed up through Ancestry.UK and had to sign back in there to get to my account. However, all emails are Ancestry.com, like they come from the States. REALLY very annoying.
Also, I heard years ago, if you give them your credit card number and are supposed to get the first 15 days free, they will pull payment on Day 10. Very bad business practices.
They are terrible!
So I read all the remarks and comments about ancestry.com. just like to say you’re right about unsubscribing not being easy. But if you call their 800 number wait on hold for a short time , Mine being 15 minutes they unsubscribe me with no problem and no charge. Thanks
FINALLY! A solution (I hope). Just tried your suggestion. If it works, I’ll pass this along. Talk about a nightmare!
Thank you, thank you very much. I am so relieved to be able to put this to rest. Gratefully Yours.
Change your email to the Ancestry email. Can’t be spam if they are sending it to themselves. Yeah, I know that prob won’t work but it is a nice thought!
Being politically active during campaign periods, which now days is eternal, I get solicitations for bribes, contributions, continually. Some of these have no opt out feature suggesting questionable ethics or bogus campaigns. This might work on those as well.
Their experience is positively dreadful and I had to jump the same hoops to stop getting email I never asked for or agreed to. I went a step further as well and contacted customer service, went a few rounds and forced them to delete my account. It can be done, theoretically, but I’m not going to attempt to sign in to confirm it for fear that it will reactivate the bots and I’ll have to start all over!