Author Topic: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted  (Read 1094 times)

Offline Millmoor

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,541
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #9 on: Sunday 12 January 25 17:59 GMT (UK) »
Thanks Rosie. I am aware of this but my sub has ages to run. I am sure you understand the point I was making comparing the 2 sites.

William
Dent (Haltwhistle and Sacriston), Bell and Jetson (Haltwhistle), Postle, Ward, Longstaff, Purvis, Manners, Parnaby and Hardy (Co. Durham), Kennedy and McRobert (Banffshire), Reid(Bathgate), Watson (Wemyss), Graham (Libberton), Sandilands (Carmichael), Munro (Dingwall)

Offline 4b2

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 142
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #10 on: Sunday 12 January 25 22:07 GMT (UK) »
These “tools” should be included in my opinion.

At Ancestry it seems you have to pay for tools that others provide/include in the cost of the DNA test. And they have removed things which used to be included, to force you to pay a sub for the DNA results to be of any use.

I think they’ll be divvying up more features and charging separately for them, likely additional costs if you manage more than one test etc etc.

I’m not impressed with Ancestry atm.

I used to be Ancestry's biggest affiliate. They moved middle-man twice and each time the commissions you earned dropped significantly. the first time they moved commissions dropped around 30%. Then they moved again in the last two years again. They decreased their commission rate from about 25% to 5%. And the commissions essentially went to zero.

So, any ability to make a side-income of full-time income via genealogy affiliates has essentially ended.

From my insight I can also see that genealogy companies have been doing poorly since about 2022, when the COviD money-pprinting inflation savaged disposable income and thus discretionary spending. The sale of DNA tests has also seemingly dropped in the last few years.

So it looks like Ancestry are resorting to gouging loyal customers to increase their margin.

I do think the ProTools pricing is very disingenuous. To make it worthwhile they really need to include something like:

- a chromosome browser
- find matches by shared segments via the browser
- show common ancestors in all your DNA matches trees (including extrapolations of those trees)
- a tool that will auto-group clusters of matches (including low cM matches)
- more advanced tools for cataloging the matches; at the moment I use a spreadsheet, but if you could use a system built in to the website it would be much more powerful, letting you more clearly see who in which clusters are DNA matches

I developed a script to do some of these jobs. But with all the data in their possession it would be much easier and accessible if they provided these tools, which are nothing too fancy. Being able to find shared matches who have common ancestors (and thus may be your ancestors/relatives) is extremely useful. That's the only one that is a bit more work, but they already have that system setup with through-lines, so it's not a major expansion.

Having worked though my tests very deeply I've found there are lots of hacks to breaking down brick walls. One is that I will compare full downloaded match lists of two or more related peoples. This can show that there are certain matches that are likely pointing to a common ancestry, but don't show up under their Shared Matches. As an example, you may have a 2nd cousin 1X removed who happened to inherit 72cM from 3X great-grandparents and you inherited 76cM them, but only share a small amount, say 6cM. Thus that 2nd cousin 1X removed may common matches from that line that are not DNA overlaps.

Particularly with multiple tests there are far more that can be extracted out of your matches, but the lack of tools means it's not accessible to people. And that they took about 9 months to roll out the "64 groups" as a paid feature, it doesn't seem likely they will deliver meaningful value to loyal customers.

As a programmer, I can say that the 64 groups could have been rolled out very quickly. It's a bit baffling it was on the shelf for months.

Offline Glen in Tinsel Kni

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,331
  • Scottish Borders
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #11 on: Monday 13 January 25 01:54 GMT (UK) »
For a bit of perspective I have just done some sums.

I have an Ancestry Premium sub costing £119.99 a year and, as a result of signing up quickly, pay £4.99  a month for pro tools.

I also have 2 DNA kits on My Heritage. One is an upload from Ancestry where I took advantage of their do it for free offer. This gives access to their tools. The other kit is a My Heritage test which does not give access to their tools. For the MH test to be of more value i would have to take out a sub. ( As things stand it shows only one shared match per match). Although they currently have a first year 25% discount in operation, Premium Plus is £184.99 and Complete £269.99. I have yet to be tempted.

William

MH have been throwing all sorts of offers at me over xmas, complete sub for £114 when purchasing a dna kit then a couple of days later they offered the same sub for £70 as a standalone product.  I
 uploaded 3 kits from Ancestry and bought DNA tools for mine but I can count the number of matches above 50cM on one hand so I'm glad I didn't test with them back  in the day.

Offline TonyV

  • RootsChat Senior
  • ****
  • Posts: 460
  • Expect the unexpected (I forgot to!)
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #12 on: Monday 13 January 25 23:19 GMT (UK) »

[/quote]

MH have been throwing all sorts of offers at me over xmas, complete sub for £114 when purchasing a dna kit then a couple of days later they offered the same sub for £70 as a standalone product.  I
 uploaded 3 kits from Ancestry and bought DNA tools for mine but I can count the number of matches above 50cM on one hand so I'm glad I didn't test with them back  in the day.
[/quote]

I just checked and I have 33 over 50cM out of nearly 19,000 MH matches. Maybe I have more because my paternal side is mainly American?


Offline 4b2

  • RootsChat Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 142
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday 14 January 25 00:07 GMT (UK) »
I just checked and I have 33 over 50cM out of nearly 19,000 MH matches. Maybe I have more because my paternal side is mainly American?

The majority of matches on MyHeritage are false positives.

Offline Glen in Tinsel Kni

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,331
  • Scottish Borders
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #14 on: Tuesday 14 January 25 01:13 GMT (UK) »


The majority of matches on MyHeritage are false positives.

I agree. It's difficult to imagine how else I'd have broadly the same number of matches on MH as on Ancestry considering how much smaller the MH database is. The inflated cM figures are a problem even with genuine matches though, my half sib is a 1792cM match on Ancestry but when I uploaded the results to MH we are said to share over 2000cM and considered as more likely to be full sibs.


Offline AnotherDay

  • RootsChat Extra
  • **
  • Posts: 26
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #15 on: Tuesday 14 January 25 01:23 GMT (UK) »
Millmoor/William - I suggest you download a copy of the raw data for the kit that doesn't have access to the tools, then during RootsTech in March you should be able to upload that raw data during their expected 'free unlock' period.

With MyHeritage, there is 'unlock' and 'subscription' - two very different things. Unlock provides you with access to the DNA tools - for a modest price. Subscription provides you with access to family history information, plus the DNA tools - much higher price.

Offline Steve3180

  • RootsChat Extra
  • **
  • Posts: 21
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #16 on: Tuesday 14 January 25 11:38 GMT (UK) »


The majority of matches on MyHeritage are false positives.

I agree. It's difficult to imagine how else I'd have broadly the same number of matches on MH as on Ancestry considering how much smaller the MH database is. The inflated cM figures are a problem even with genuine matches though, my half sib is a 1792cM match on Ancestry but when I uploaded the results to MH we are said to share over 2000cM and considered as more likely to be full sibs.



I always took the MH over inflation as an inevitable consequence of them using a different chipset than Ancestry and therefore having to impute (ie guess) the missing values. Not much anybody can do about that beyond make allowances for the increased values. Part of the increased number of false positives will probably come from that and part from Ancestry's parental phasing (presumably based on population statistics, although they haven't explained) which ought to reduce their's.

It is concerning that MH can't distiguish siblings from half-siblings when the test is so easy and exact, only full siblings will have large fully identical regions.

But then again Ancestry can't seem to distinguish Aunt/Uncle from Grandparent where the test is almost as exact, the cM ranges may overlap but in the Aunt/Uncle it will be made up of about twice the number of segments.

In my experience both companies are wildly out in their predicted relationships and so at best it's a vague hint.

Offline melba_schmelba

  • RootsChat Aristocrat
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,812
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Ancestry Pro Tools discounted
« Reply #17 on: Monday 20 January 25 11:38 GMT (UK) »
Ancestry Pro Tools are on offer until 20 January 2025 -

£24.99 for 6 months  https://www.ancestry.co.uk/offers/join?feature=proTools&durFilter=semi

or £5.59 for 1 month https://www.ancestry.co.uk/offers/join?feature=proTools

Kathryn
Thanks, last day of the offer today. Otherwise, it's £7.99 a month or £35.99 for 6 months.