A charge from ANC* on your statement

ANC*ANCESTRY.COM is Ancestry, the family history site. The same ANC* start is used for the other record sites Ancestry’s terms list beside it: ANC*NEWSPAPERS.COM, ANC*FOLD3.COM and ANC*ARCHIVES.COM.¹ The charge is a membership that renewed by itself, a trial that became a paid plan, or a second site you did not know was part of the same account. The terms say "subscriptions automatically renew", and that after a renewal "you are not eligible for any refunds".¹

What it looks like on a real statement

Ancestry’s terms and help pages do not say what its charges are called on a card statement; we found no page from Ancestry that does. The State of Delaware publishes every purchase its employees make on state cards, with the merchant name as the bank received it. When we counted on 4 October 2026, 279 lines had a merchant name starting with ANC* (leaving out unrelated names such as ANCHOR BAR), from 19 July 2017 to 17 August 2026, paid by six state offices and a school district.²

An older record agrees. Park County’s card report for February 2014 (the county’s site is parkcountyco.gov) lists ANC*ANCESTRY.COM $99.00, which the county itself describes as "Bi-annual membership fees".³

The same site under two spellings

One office, the Legislative Branch, paid Newspapers.com $74.90 on the 22nd of January and July, thirteen times from 22 July 2020 to 22 July 2026. The line read ANC*NEWSPAPERS.COM through 22 July 2023, and ANC* NEWSPAPERS.COM, with a space after the star, from 22 January 2024 on.² The data does not say why the spelling changed. If you search your statement for last year’s exact wording, you can miss this year’s.

The same plan at a different price

One department paid Ancestry $16.50 a month, sixteen times, from 31 December 2020 to 31 March 2022. From 4 April 2022 its monthly charge was $49.99, fifty-two times to 9 August 2026.² The data does not say what changed. Ancestry’s terms say a price in place when you bought or last renewed stays for that period, "but new prices and terms may apply to renewals", with "reasonable notice".¹ A charge that looks too high may be the same membership at its current price.

What the terms say about refunds

Ancestry’s Renewal and Cancellation Terms say the following, by kind of plan.¹

• Free or paid trial. You may cancel "at any time prior to two days before the end of the trial period"; after that your subscription starts and "no refunds will be issued", apart from the exceptions in the terms. One free and one paid trial per user.
• Monthly. Cancel "prior to two business days before your renewal date"; no refund, and access continues to the end of the paid month.
• Longer than a month, billed upfront, sold through Ancestry. If it did not begin with a trial, in the first 14 days of your first term you may cancel for a full refund and lose access at once. Otherwise no refund. "You are not eligible for any refunds after your subscription renews or if you have previously subscribed to Ancestry." Refunds are "not based on account usage".
• Fold3, Newspapers.com, Archives and others, longer than a month, billed upfront. Cancel in the first 30 days for a full refund; if it began with a free trial, the 30 days start after the trial ends. After that, no refund and access to the end of the term.
• Longer than a month, billed monthly. You are "committing to the entire length of your subscription". Cancelling early can cost a fee: on ancestry.com the lesser of $25 for 6 months or $50 for 12 months, or what remains of the subscription.

The terms also let you pause a renewing Ancestry subscription for up to two months. A pause removes access to paid content while it lasts, and cancelling during it means you will not be charged.¹ A subscription bought through the Ancestry app is managed in the app store it was bought from.¹

Two lines in the Delaware data show refunds that were made. On 29 March 2018 an office was charged $56.83 by ANC*ARCHIVES.COM; the next day three credits of $14.00, $27.83 and $15.00, $56.83 in all, came back.² The data does not show why.

How to find it and stop it

1. Find the account Search your email, including spam, for "Ancestry", "Newspapers.com", "Fold3" and "Archives" and the amount. Check every address you might have signed up with. A free trial of one site is a common start: the terms say the paid plan begins when the trial ends unless you cancel more than two days before.¹
2. Cancel on the right site Ancestry subscriptions: Account Settings on ancestry.com, or its contact page. Newspapers.com, Fold3 and Archives each have their own account page and contact page; the terms list each. A site that you reach through an Ancestry subscription is cancelled in Ancestry’s Account Settings, while one you bought on its own is cancelled on its own site.¹
3. Ask for the money back If you are inside the 14 or 30 days, say so and give the date of the first charge. If you are outside, the terms say no refund; ask anyway, in writing, and write down who you spoke to. The terms add that your "statutory rights" are not affected.¹
4. If nobody you know has the account, go to your bank If no site finds an account in your name and no one near you used one, treat it as fraud: ask your bank to cancel the card and dispute the charge, and ask what its deadline is. It depends on the bank, the card network and the reason, and missing it can end your options.

Is this a scam?

The name is real: these lines are Ancestry’s and its sister sites’ own, and the Delaware data shows more than two hundred ordinary charges under them.² That does not make every such charge wanted. A forgotten trial and a stolen card look the same on the statement. If your email shows nothing, it belongs with your bank.

Why this page is on a site about held money

This site records payment companies that hold back money that belongs to someone else. Ancestry is not in the incident record; this page is here so that people searching for a name on a statement find the answer. Other memberships that renew by themselves are NYTIMES*, ADOBE *ADOBE and CANVA*. Other lines are in the table of statement names.

Sources

1. Ancestry, "Ancestry Renewal and Cancellation Terms": automatic renewal, cancellation, trials, monthly plans, plans billed upfront, plans billed monthly and the cancellation fee, pausing. Read on 4 October 2026 (the page lists Fold3, Newspapers.com, Archives, Forces War Records and Find a Grave beside Ancestry). The web archive would not save this page (error 520 on two tries), so there is no archived copy. ancestry.com.
2. State of Delaware Open Data, State Employee Credit Card Transactions, fields "merchant", "trans_dt", "dept_name" and "merchandise_amt". Lines starting with ANC*. Queried and counted on 4 October 2026. The examples are the Legislative Branch (Newspapers.com, $74.90), the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (Ancestry, $16.50 then $49.99), and a charge of $56.83 on 29 March 2018 with credits on 30 March 2018.
3. Park County, "March Mastercard billing for February transactions" (card report, line dated 8 February 2014, posted 10 February 2014). parkcountyco.gov. Read on 4 October 2026. Archived copy of 4 October 2026.