How much is Ancestry UK? If you have taken up the offer of a free trial to Ancestry.co.uk you may be wondering how much your subscription to Ancestry will cost afterwards. Here is our guide to the UK subscription packages on Ancestry, how much they cost and which is the right subscription option for your UK genealogy research.
The first thing to recognise is that there are some free records on Ancestry. They are, however, only a very small proportion of what is available and you can read about them in our guide to Ancestry free records.
You also need to be sure that Ancestry membership is right for you as its main rival Findmypast also has a good selection of records. You can find out more about Findmypast pricing here or check out our guide to choosing the best family history website. And if you are just interested in accessing census records there are cheaper options than Ancestry’s Essentials membership. TheGenealogist.co.uk offers its Starter package for just £54.95 for 12 months.
Finally, don’t forget that you can sign up for a 14-day free trial at Ancestry before you subscribe. You can take out any of the packages (except All Access) as your free trial. If you cancel within two days of the end of the trial, you will not be charged. Customers can only do one free trial. At the end of your trial your subscription will move to the membership plan you signed up for with the pricing as below.
Ancestry Essentials membership
£10.99 monthly auto renewing
£54.99 six monthly auto renewing (equivalent to £9.16/month)
£95.99 annual auto renewing (equivalent to £8/month)
The Essentials membership package is very basic. It gives you access to all of the UK census records plus the records that are always free such as the GRO indexes. On Ancestry’s website it describes the package as including UK and Irish birth, marriage and death records but these are just the GRO indexes that are free anyway. It does not include any of the more useful parish records that come with a bigger membership package.
Ancestry Premium membership
£13.99 monthly auto renewing
£69.99 six monthly auto renewing (equivalent to £11.66/month)
£119.99 annual auto renewing (equivalent to £10/month)
The Premium membership package is much better value and is not surprisingly the most popular package for Ancestry UK. It covers all of the UK and Ireland records held on Ancestry including millions of church, military and other records. For most people researching their UK ancestors this is the best value Ancestry subscription package.
Ancestry Worldwide membership
£19.99 monthly auto renewing
£99.99 six monthly auto renewing (equivalent to £16.66/month)
£179.99 annual auto renewing (equivalent to £15/month)
Worldwide membership to Ancestry gives access to all of the company’s international records so it’s perfect for anyone researching overseas ancestors, particularly North American ancestors. For most UK researchers this is more than you will need, however, you can jump between different subscription packages so you can go for Essentials membership, for example when you first get started, then move up to Premium membership and then perhaps go for a short period of Worldwide membership to cover any international records before moving back down to Premium.
Ancestry All Access membership
£24.99 monthly auto renewing
£224.99 annual auto renewing (equivalent to £18.75/month)
All Access membership includes basic membership to Newspapers.com and full membership to Ancestry’s military records website Fold3. Although both of these add-ons offer useful records for UK members, notably the WW1 pension cards and courts martial records on Fold3 and a good selection of UK newspaper titles on Newspapers.com (many not available on Findmypast/British Newspaper Archive), both sites have predominantly North American records. However, upgrading to All Access for a short period can be a useful way to add records from these collections easily to your family tree. The clipping tool on Newspapers.com is excellent and works seamlessly with Ancestry’s family tree.