This concern is more for Steve Rockwood or his director of marketing relationships with Ancestry

markjay

I am serving in the Canada Toronto mission teaching family history to the members of the ward we're assigned and the missionaries. I retired early from Ancestry and was involved in the Ancestry/FamilySearch contract. Originally we were told at Ancestry that members of the Church would get the 'all access', World Deluxe Accounts. Now when helping people with UK ancestry [and there are many in Ontario], we're seeing lots of records they can't access in the Manchester area and Ancestry customer support says that members of the Church have to buy the expensive World Deluxe accounts, which cost a lot of money and are the most expensive subscriptions at Ancestry, to get these Manchester records. I think that this is wrong because at Ancestry, often databases wouldn't be tagged correctly for LDS users to access. Some of the records we can't access are:

Manchester, England, Church of England Marriages and Bann, 1754-1930

Manchester, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1985

Manchester, England, Non-Conformist Births and Baptisms, 1758-1912

Manchester, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1541-1812

Manchester, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1573-1812 (Cathedral)

MNuttall

Hello, @markjay @markjay

If you drill down on the information about Ancestry in the Solutions Gallery, you'll see that LDS access grants you 99% of Ancestry's databases. Those Manchester, England, collections are probably that missing 1%!

Ancestry Account Sign-Up

To sign up for your free Ancestry account, visit the Ancestry.com page on FamilySearch. If you already have an Ancestry account, you can convert it to an Church account, which allows you to access some unique features and integration tools with FamilySearch that are available only through a partnership account. Church members with free Ancestry accounts can access 99 percent of Ancestry’s databases. The only exceptions occur when a contractual agreement limits free access. The account also does not include other Ancestry partner sites like Fold3 or special services like Ancestry DNA.

dontiknowyou

And you have not been able to escalate the issue with Ancestry?

markjay

The problem is, Ancestry has outsourced its customer support and they just say to buy the World Deluxe because they don't know locally what the contract says with FamilySearch

markjay

Thanks mNuttall. That was perfect. I've been fighting this question for 2 years.

Paul W

@markjay

I was surprised to find how much material there is on the FamilySearch website relating to Manchester. Some is index, other material is image-only. Admittedly, the whole date range is probably not covered, but it is well checking FamilySearch, too.

A van Helsdingen

The owners of the collections on Ancestry decide whether free access for Latter Day Saints apply to their records. In most countries there are religious equality and non-discrimination laws (e.g. the 1st Amendment in the US) that mean that public records cannot be more accessible to members of one religion versus everyone else. So if LDS accounts have free access then they would also have to make it free for everyone else, and lose all their revenue.

About three years ago it was remarked by someone on this forum's predecessor that the proportion of records on Ancestry that are free to LDS was much less than 99%, and continually declining. "99% of records free" is a advertising/PR stunt.