Fold3 Reviews 77

I am not sure why Ancestry ever moved things over from the main collection. I would have preferred that they keep the material over at Ancestry and just sold it as an add on there, as searching for things on Fold3 can be maddening.

The results always seem to be an overwhelming muddle. I hate the clutter and intrusive of the overlays on top of the records. You are constantly having to slide the record around to read what is under them and viewing of the record itself, is always obscured by something, and the actual viewing area is so small it's annoying.

I only use the site out of desperation, even though I always have a an active membership. I will look up the material anyplace else I can find it, rather than fiddle with trying to see it under all that stuff plastered all over them.

When the records were housed over at Ancestry they were easy to see and easy to search and the organization system was tip top.

I have a lot of complaints about Ancestry as of late, but its search and organization system is still the best on the Internet. I just find looking for things over at Fold3 frustrating. As the searches come in, in such a disorganized jumble, I have no idea what I will find where and often how to relocate when i want to view it again. Where on Ancestry, I know each collection and set of records like the back of my hand.

There aren't enough explanations of each collection are and where the record is coming from. It would benefit from a complete organizational over haul. I find the site so confusing that I can't even describe what I dislike about it, as I can't analyze what is even happening.
It always feels like someone threw a massive pile of papers at you and then left and you would need to spend hours collating them just to effectively get things in date order. With Ancestry someone hands you a pile and says, here are the immigrations, here are the Tax records, here are the birth records.

On Fold3 I feel like I am playing pinball and everything is lighting up at once so I have no idea where my ball just hit. I think if they go red of all the stupid overlays that obscure the record you are viewing, you would be able to get familiar with what they have over there, that's kind of impossible at least for me on the site. they actually have a lot of great stuff. I particularly like that you can see so much of the Civil War records, so can figure out if this might be the correct pension file, rather than ordering ing it from the NRA and taking a guess.Military research is vital in most families if you want to get any where, so it's nice that it is an affordable site as not everyone can afford an Ancestry subscription all access.

Doing some things like making the viewing windows larger sliding over and functions drop down and other overlays and making them exist in smaller borders would make it a much more enjoyable site. You have price going for it and a good collection of material that could easily be a 5 star rated site if only it had better organization and better graphic design. When you pay to see a record you want to view that record not view it under a bunch of things obscuring it. If it was a piece of paper sitting on your desk and you wanted to read it, the first thing you would do is slid over all the scraps of paper laying on it.

Signed up for the free trial, wasn't anything I was looking for.... canceled ( so I thought) got charged $109.24 cad. I have tried emailing, calling and no reply. I just want my money back. If they don't make it right and refund me I'm going back to the bank.

They have responded and refunded my funds back to my account. Still don't like that you have to contact them just to cancel an account and the whole charging you after your free trial without confirmation of you proceeding

Unfortunately like most others I had a negative experience with Fold3. After appearing to cancel, they still took £40 GP ($49.95)

I have emailed but no response as of yet.

I too was a little disappointed at the (lack of) military records on Fold3 and decided it wasn't for me and cancelled on the first day. 7 days later, £40 removed from my credit card.

Still waiting for a reply, if nothing I will have to dispute this with my cardholder.

I wish you could put no stars on the rating.
As with others tried the service, but then cancelled after a couple of days. They then took money for a full years membership. I have tried to contact them but received nothing. Stay away. They are just a place for taking money without any service

Not much use to UK genealogists unless they have ancestors in the USA. Got sucked in by the offer of a free trial and have been trying to cancel it ever since. Information about cancelling subscriptions is non-existent. They don't want you to find out how to do it. Fortunately, the debit card they have on record has now expired, so they will be unceremoniously dumped when they next try to renew.

Absolutely awful... Searching for UK/British records only to get US records, most searches bring back 130 million results even though several filters are applied!! A complete waste of time. I will cancel my free trial and hope I am not charged for a full subscription just as others have been.

I emailed the support mailbox asking a question. The response i received had nothing to do with the question i asked & has no rep name on it. It appears to be a standardized pre-written reply.
Because of this, i will not be renewing the subscription.

Great customer service.
I had an excellent response from fold3 when I needed to cancel my subscription. Very prompt and helpful.

I wish I had read these reviews before signing up yesterday ..
Needing to use the Chelsea Pensioner records I am disgusted that the UK records are so poorly displayed as to be unreadable. Printing them off does not work in any useful way either. Only signed & paid for 1 month but have already given up on further searching. and will be watching my bank account carefully.
Shame on you Ancestry for allowing this to happen.

I've used Ancestry UK to do family research for the past five or six years, and found military records seemed to be 'disappearing' into Fold3 which will need an upgrade on my Ancestry subscription. I've used the 7-day free trial and will not be upgrading. As others have said, there's few UK records and I'm not interested in American records. The Search is pretty basic, and generates poor returns even if UK only is selected. This seems to be yet another example of Ancestry ignoring the needs of their UK customers.

This company ripped me off. I am incredibly unhappy that they charged my credit card with $80NZD without advising prior. The site is useless and I used it once in the free trial. Attempting to request my money back and cancel this account as I want nothing to do with them.

Be very wary. Will Be reporting this one to the bank. Scammers!

Thieves! Completely dishonest. I probably used their free site once, but they snagged my credit card, which I NEVER use for so-called free trial.

Signed up for their "Free 7-day trial" and by the third day found the information I was interested in to be incomplete, unsourced and factually incorrect. I attempted to cancel via email to "Contact us" but received no response. I sent a second email before the end of the trial period, again with no response. When my VISA bill came, I discovered they charged me for a full year. I called their voice mail and again received no reply. It appears I am dealing with a company dedicated to internet fraud as a working business model. Then again, maybe I am being too harsh. Maybe they are simply grossly incompetent.

Very Amercian based or biased.
Difficult to search and navigate for British records.
"Ancestry" might direct you to the British doc. on Fold3 but if you search for the same directly via Fold3 it rarely comes up.
A confusing home page.
Not good value for money from British docs. point of via - just Ancestry trying to squeeze more money out of you.

Tried their "trial offer" but conveniently could not get a hold of anyone to cancel the trial after deciding this was not what I needed. Left a voicemail before the end trial date, still charge $80 fee.

DO NOT GO FOR THE TRIAL OFFER, THEY WILL NOT HONOR THE CANCELLATION AND CHARGE YOU.

This outfit, A companion company to Ancestry .com has the same ethics as it's big brother. That is NONE. Many British war records which used to be on Ancestry UK have been migrated across to make subscribers pay extra . Burglars the pair of them. They also grab your money without authority .