FREEBMD: THE FREE ONLINE
CIVIL REGISTRATION INDEX
FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
©Copyright 2012 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
- Welcome and What This Class Is All About
- Overview of Civil Registration and FreeBMD
- Searching
- Other Information and Helps for FreeBMD
- What to do with Data from FreeBMD
- More Information About Civil Registration in England and Wales
- Conclusion
Return to the Utah Valley Technology and
Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's
Class Listings Page . This page was last updated 2012-05-14.
WELCOME AND WHAT THIS CLASS IS ALL ABOUT
- Instructors are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
, dmsnow34@gmail.com ) of Provo
and St. George, Utah.
- These notes are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
with all the links, so you don't have to type them in
yourself. Hold down the Ctrl key when you click on a link and
the link opens in another tab so you keep these notes open where you
were.
- This class is to show you how to use the website http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
to find Civil Registration information (BMD = birth, marriage,
and death) about people in England and Wales.
OVERVIEW OF CIVIL REGISTRATION AND FREEBMD
- Civil Registration was started in the England and Wales in July
1837 due to an act of Parliament to record all births, marriages, and
deaths
- Done by the official government agency -- the office where you
request birth, marriage, and death certificates -- not the churches,
but the churches also recorded this data
- BMD volumes
- Each county keep records and sent copies yearly to London where
they were entered in large volumes, handwritten for the early years
and printed for the later years
- Handwritten index books are from 1837 through 1983, then by a
computer system in 1984 with no hard copy
- The BMD volumes were available to the public at St.
Catherine's House (London), then Somerset House (London), then The
Family Records Centre in Islington (London)
- On 27 Oct 2007 all the BMD volumes were put in storage at the
National Archives -- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/
-- at Kew Gardens, Richmond, Greater London and are no longer
accessible to the public
- Filmed images of the volumes (through 1983) were made several
times and are available at locations such as
- FH Library in Salt Lake City
- London FHC in Hyde Park Chapel, London -- http://www.londonfhc.org/
- The National Archives, Kew Gardens, London
- Digitized images of the volumes (through 1983) are available online
at
- http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
-- free site, most images and the index up through about the
1950's completed so far
- http://www.findmypast.com
-- commercial site, but available in FHC's
- http://ancestry.co.uk/ --
commercial site, but available in FHC's
- http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/
-- commercial site, index is free, but not the images
- FreeBMD website -- http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
- Volunteer effort to transcribe all the BMD information from the
index volumes and post it online -- free and easily searchable
- Currently has more than 210 million distinct records (last
data Apr 2012)
- Numbers of entries by year are posted at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/EntryCounts.pl
- Quote from the FreeBMD FAQ's page -- http://www.freebmd.org.uk/FAQ.html
-- "Current estimates are that the years 1837-1983 (the end of the
transcribing element of the Project) will be completed by
September 2013."
SEARCHING
- Click on the SEARCH button on home page > Select
search type wanted: All Types (of events), or Births,
or Deaths, or Marriages and options
- Information about searches
- Enter as little information as you think will identify
the individual at the start and only add more information
when you get too many hits -- Reason is that search terms
even slightly different from indexed terms will be missed
- Display shows up to 3000 hits and can narrow the results
down by entering more data, e.g. names, variants of names,
ages, locations, counties, registration districts, etc.
- Can set it for Exact Match or Phonetic Search -- default
is non-exact on given names and exact on surnames
- Results show: Event (B, M, or D), Quarter, Year, %
Completed (of the indexing), Surname, Given Name(s),
Registration District, Volume, Page, and two icons: INFO and
GLASSES
- Reg District is a link and clicking on it takes you to
information about that reg district
- Page number is a link and clicking on it gives you a
list of all event entries in that reg district on that
page in the handwritten index
- Tip: To get the spouse's name
in a marriage click on the Page Number --
shows names of all people (usually less than
6 or 8 people) indexed on that page as
married so one of the opposite sex there is
the spouse; can use a census or other record
to determine which one it is
- INFO icon opens another window with information
about that entry, who transcribed it, place to post a note
with suggested corrections for that entry, etc. -- close
that windows before you can open the INFO window of
another entry
- GLASSES icon opens another window with information
about the entry and a button to click to see the original
image that was transcribed
- Can select different formats to view the image and/or
download it, e.g. jpg, tiff, gif, pdf
- Some search suggestions are on the FAQ's at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/FAQ.html
- Registration Districts
- Each usually includes many civil (and ecclesiastical)
parishes
- See http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/districts/index.html
for an alphabetical listing of all Registration
Districts in England and Wales (1837-1974) and what civil
parishes and townships were included in each
- To find the Registration District that a place is in go
to the FamilySearch Interative Map at http://maps.familysearch.org/
; enter the location > Parish > Jurisdictions --
shows the Civil Registration District, Probate Court, and
other information - very helpful
- Can also find information on Registration Districts in http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/civreg/
- There are some compilations of churches
in Registration Districts, e.g. Westminster Archives
listing of Anglican Churches in 3 London Registration
Districts -- http://www3.westminster.gov.uk/docstores/publications_store/archives/infosheet5.pdf
- Can save the search by downloading it with all the
information
- Can save the image of the search by using a screen capture
program, e.g. FastStoneCapture
, to include in your genealogy program (Version 5.3 of
FastStone Capture was the last freeware version)
OTHER INFORMATION AND HELPS FOR FREEBMD
- VIEW IMAGES button
- Has most of the images from 1837 up through 1935, even
those not yet indexed
- To see an image select Births, Marriages, or Deaths
> Submit Query, etc. -- After getting to the letter
of the alphabet for that location, year, etc., you will
have to look through several pages or estimate how far
to jump ahead -- can select the format you want (jpg,
pdf, gif, or tiff), but you have to estimate which page
of that letter; can then view and/or download the image
- INFORMATION button -- Has a way to report problems, see
general information, FAQ's, statistics, coverage and
percentages completed, index of graphs by years and totals,
transcriber information, submitter list, how to order
certificates, how to sign up as a transcriber
- JOIN FREEBMD button -- how to volunteer and get started
helping with the FreeBMD project
- TRANSCRIBERS' PAGE -- file management, transcribers'
knowledgebase, transcribers software programs available, how
to read 19th Century handwriting, many helps for
transcribers, examples of data and things to look for,
and tutorials
WHAT TO DO WITH THE DATA FROM FREEBMD
- FreeBMD is a finding aid to lead you to the
certificates and/or further research -- it does NOT
include the certificates nor all the data on them
- FreeBMD does not give exact dates -- only the
quarter they were recorded in
- Quarters are Mar Qtr = Jan, Feb, or Mar; Jun Qtr
= Apr, May, or Jun; Sep Qtr = Jul, Aug, or Sep; Dec Qtr
= Oct, Nov, or Dec
- One way to record these dates in your genealogy
program is "Apr-Jun 1867"
- Event may have been recorded in a later quarter than
it really occurred, e.g. birth may not be registered
until later, so if you can't find it when it occurred,
try searching later quarters or years
- To find the exact date when you know the year
and quarter from FreeBMD
- Order the certificate from the GRO - http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/
-- costs about £9 (= about $14), but gives more
information
- Look on websites such as http://www.bmdshare.com/
to see if someone who has that certificate has shared
the information; certificates are copyrighted by The
Crown and hence cannot be posted, but the data on them
can be
- Determine the parish -- then
you may be able to find the event in a
parish register
- FreeBMD gives you the
Registration District, but not the
parish, and some
Reg Dists contain 20 or
more parishes -- UK has
more than 10,000 church parishes
- Can sometimes get more information from
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk which includes the
county registration office information
- If you find the parish, can see if the parish
register is available by searching FamilySearch
Catalog
- If you find the parish and the births and
marriages were extracted (indexed) you may be able
to find the batch number at the sites http://www.archersoftware.co.uk/igi/index.htm
and http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm
- Can search FamilySearch
Historical Records and the old IGI
by batch number and name
- Can also try searching for the name on https://www.familysearch.org
since you know the time period from FreeBMD
- Search FreeReg -- http://www.freereg.org.uk/
-- a project like Free BMD to index
parish registers
- Knowing possible spouse names you may be
able to find the marriage in Boyd's Marriage
Index -- http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/sog/misc-series
-- available at all FHC's
- Can also check other sources
such as newspapers, online family trees,
and wills
- Ancestry has an older version of the FreeBMD database, but
has additional search capabilities that may help
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CIVIL REGISTRATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES
- The National Archives - helps, online leaflets, and
databases -- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
and http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/birthmarriagedeathenglandwales.htm
- Vision of Britain - maps and information on jurisdictions --
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/types/
- Kimberly Powell's page - article and links -- http://genealogy.about.com/od/england/a/bmd.htm
- GENUKI links and information -- http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/
- Barbara Dixon's Registration Web Page -- http://www.dixons.clara.co.uk/Certificates/indexbd.htm
- The Genealogist's Internet, Online Sources for Civil
Registration, including local BMD projects -- http://www.spub.co.uk/tgi3/links05.php
- BMD Index UK -- http://www.bmdindex.co.uk/ --
commercial site, but has indexes including from 1984-2005
CONCLUSION
- FreeBMD is a very helpful family history tool and is the
only completely free index to English and Welsh Civil
Registration.
Return to the Utah Valley
Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's
Class Listings Page .