Friday, August 18, 2006

Strong Reaction by Family Researchers to the "New" Ancestry.com

OK, nobody else (that I've seen) has blogged about it, but it is really big news: Ancestry.com changed its website, including the way information is accessed. No one seems too happy about it, but apparently Ancestry is not willing to change it back...only to address some of the more serious problems. In the past 18 days, there have been 185 comments posted to the Ancestry Weekly Journal post about the changes...of those, I only found one comment that was NOT negative.

There's a lot of frustrated people out there who say they are cancelling or choosing not to renew their subscriptions when they come due. One fellow warned, "AOL wouldn't listen to their customers, either, and look what happened to them!"

I'm not too pleased myself. I loved the "People I'm Looking For" feature, which has been messed with. I had to upload my GEDCOM to continue it, and I'm not so sure that's a good idea. Years ago I didn't like that Family Tree Maker took people's GEDCOMs, turned around and put them on CD, and then sold them...with mistakes and old incomplete data galore. Makes me wonder...?!

Well, if ain't broke, don't fix it. I think a business has a lot to lose if it doesn't listen to its customers. It will be interesting to see what the outcome will be. I think Heritage Quest, with much similar data, will be giving Ancestry a run for its money.

I invite your comments below.

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