Ancestry.com offers a 14-day free trial for all new subscribers. The free trial is fully functional, just as though you had paid for the subscription. There is one requirement, however: you must give credit card details. Why? After 14 days, your card is charged a subscription. For this reason, there are two suggested guidelines to follow:
1. If you plan on using Ancestry.com anyways, choose the subscription option that you want billed. That way, after the free trial you will just default into a paid subscription.
2. If you plan on cancelling, choose the monthly subscription option. That way, if you forget to cancel, you are only billed for a single month instead of a full year or quarter.
To avoid subscription fees after the 14-day free trial, you must cancel. Once you see the fantastic resources available, you won’t want to cancel of course (unless you simply don’t have the time available). As long as you cancel, you are not charged anything. Note: you may see a $1.00 authorization charge initially. This is an industry standard and is only used to ensure that your card is valid. It is promptly returned back to your account.
Here’s another recommendation: if you don’t know if you need the full World Deluxe membership or just the U.S. Deluxe membership, sign up for the World Deluxe free trial. Regardless of which trial you sign up for, they’re both free, but you only get one. In other words, if you sign up for a U.S. Deluxe free trial, if you find out later that you need the World Deluxe instead, you must upgrade immediately to a paid membership. If you sign up for the World Deluxe trial and discover you only need the U.S. Deluxe membership, you can always downgrade it before the free trial bills into a paid subscription. You must call customer support in order to downgrade, however.