Accessing Missionary Email (Ancestry access issue)

Hi everyone,

I'm in a bit of a bind. I'm trying to do some genealogy and I wanted access Ancestry. Church members get a free Ancestry membership, if you didn't know. Problem is, I did this on my mission and my foolish self used my missionary email and didn't save the password anywhere. So when I go to link my FamilySearch account, Ancestry says I already linked my account with my missionary email. I can't reset the password because I don't have access to my missionary email. I've been home for four years, so my missionary email has been deleted for years now.

Fortunately, I don't need access to any file specific file (which would have been deleted), I just need access to the account itself so I can receive the password reset email. Any chance I could get some help here, or am I cooked?

michaelconnel wrote: Sun Mar 23, 2025 10:13 pm ... when I go to link my FamilySearch account, Ancestry says I already linked my account with my missionary email. I can't reset the password because I don't have access to my missionary email

Sounds like an interesting challenge for either Global Services Department or even Ancestry support. The Church ought to be able to provide proof to Ancestry that you are who you say you are and to issue some kind of password reset to you (via The Church). Of course I'm just guessing, but this seems like it should be possible to recover.

ambldsorg wrote:
> [quote=michaelconnel post_id=257476 time=1742789631 user_id=759011]
> ... when I go to link my FamilySearch account, Ancestry says I already
> linked my account with my missionary email. I can't reset the password
> because I don't have access to my missionary email
> [/quote]
>
> Sounds like an interesting challenge for either Global Services Department
> or even Ancestry support. The Church ought to be able to provide proof to
> Ancestry that you are who you say you are and to issue some kind of
> password reset to you (via The Church). Of course I'm just guessing, but
> this seems like it should be possible to recover.
Just for clarity, I am also considering contacting Ancestry. But Cybersecurity 101 says they shouldn't make changes to my account based on me just calling them and claiming stuff like this. It would be concerning if they did. So I think I need the Church's help here.

I'd start by contacting Ancestry since the issue is an Ancestry account. I'm sure Ancestry is no stranger to people who have lost their logins because of email changes and have processes to fix that.

I think re-activating your old email account is a non-starter. If the Church does need to get involved, it would probably be FamilySearch support rather than GSD.

russellhltn wrote: Mon Mar 24, 2025 5:01 am I think re-activating your old email account is a non-starter. If the Church does need to get involved, it would probably be FamilySearch support rather than GSD.

While it would be arduous to contact the missionary GSD, it is possible for them to reactivate access to a previous mission email under certain circumstances. This will only regain access to the email account temporarily, and will not be able to recover files previously stored in a missionary Google account. Any files, photos, videos, or emails in the missionary Google account would have been deleted around 90-120 days post-release. I would recommend reaching out to them if the Ancestry account is of great value to you and if no other leads pan out