Sections of the Class Notes

• Welcome and What This Class Is All About
• Overview of FreeBMD
• Searching
• Helps and Other Information on FreeBMD
• What to do with Data from FreeBMD
• More Information About Civil Registration in England and Wales
• Conclusion
• Assignment

Return to Don's Class Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group .  This page was last updated 2007-11-18.

• Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and Diane M. Snow of the England London Mission, Hyde Park Family History Centre  (snowd@math.byu.edu, dms34@juno.com)
• These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website  http://uvtagg.org  under  Class Outlines , Don's Listings.  Many other class notes and outlines for family history are there also.
• This class is to show you how to use the website  http://www.freebmd.org.uk/  to find Civil Registration (BMD - birth, marriage, and death) information about people in England and Wales.

• Civil Registration was started in the England and Wales in July 1837 due to an act of Parliament
  • Was to record all births, marriages, and deaths that occurred in England and Wales
  • Done by the official government agency -- the office where you request birth, marriage, and death certificates
  • BMD events were recorded in large volumes that were handwritten for the early years and printed for the later years
    • Indexes were kept in these books through 1983 -- in 1984 they started using a computer system 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) -- http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/frc/default.htm
    • On 27 Oct 2007 all the volumes were put in storage at the National Archives at Kew Gardens, Richmond, Greater London and are no longer accessible by the public
    • The books have all been microfiched, microfilmed, and photographed several times and those copies are available on the web and at many sites, e.g. the Hyde Park Family History Centre,  http://www.hydeparkfhc.org , 64-68 Exhibition Road, London, England SW7 2PA has fiche copies of all the volumes (1837-1983 -- after 1983 the index was kept in a computer database and not in hard copy)
    • Images of all the volumes are on several websites
    • http://www.freebmd.org.uk/ -- has the index and images for free, but is not complete yet
    • http://www.findmypast.com/home.jsp  (commercial site) -- index is only to the page it would be on and you have to have a subscription to see the image to see if the name really is on that page
    • http://content.ancestry.co.uk/  (commercial site), good index that you can see if you sign up for a free account, but you can't see the images without a paid subscription
    • http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/  (commercial site) -- you can see the index for free, but not the images
      
• The FreeBMD website at  http://www.freebmd.org.uk/ is a volunteer effort to transcribe all the BMD information from the Civil Registration volumes into a single index that is online, easily searchable, and free.
• Estimates for completion of the indexing -- quotes from FreeBMD pages and FAQ's
• FreeBMD has 141 million distinct records as of Nov 2007
• "Current estimates are that the years 1837-1927 will be completed by December 2007."
• "It is expected the years 1837-1959 will be completed by December 2009."
• "And finally, current estimates are that the years 1837-1983 (the end of the transcribing element of the Project) will be completed by July 2011."

• Click on the SEARCH button and indicate whether All Types (of events), or Births, or Deaths, or Marriages
• Enter as little information as you think will identify the individual at the start and only add more information if you get too many hits
• Reason for entering small amount of data are start is that any data searched for that is even slightly different from what is in the index, may miss it
• Will only display up to 3000 hits, but even that would need narrowing down to manageable size
• Can narrow the results down by entering names, variants of names, ages, locations, registration districts, counties, etc.
• Can check Exact Match on Given Names or Phonetic Search on Surnames -- default is non-exact on given names and exact on surnames
• Results show: Event, Quarter, Year, % Completed, Surname, Given Name(s), Registration District, Volume, Page, and icons of 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 index
• For marriages clicking on the page gives everyone on that page married in that reg district and this will give possibilities for the spouse -- very helpful for marriages
• INFO icon opens a new windows with information about that entry, who transcribed it, place to post a postem note with suggested corrections for that entry, etc. -- have to 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 place to click to see the original image that was transcribed
• Can select several different formats to view and/or download it, e.g. gif, jpg, tiff, pdf
• Registration Districts
• Each usually includes many civil (and ecclesiastical) parishes
• See  http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/districts/index.htm  for an alphabetical listing of all Registration Districts in England and Wales (1837-1974) and what civil parishs and townships were included in each
• Can also find information about Registration Districts at  http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/civreg/places  
• 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
• Using a screen capture program, e.g. FastStoneCapture , you can save the image of the search results to include in your PAF or other genealogy program

• IMAGES button
• Can see the image containing any search result by clicking on the GLASSES icon on the search results page
• Can see any image from 1837 up through 1935, even those which have not been indexed yet, by clicking on the VIEW IMAGES button
• To see an image on the VIEW IMAGES page, select Births, Marriages, or Deaths, then Query; then the year, then Query; then the quarter, then Query; then letter of alphabet, then Query; then select the page out of those with that letter and the format you want - pdf, gif, jpg, or tiff  -- but you have to estimate which page of that letter -- you can view and/or download the image
• INFORMATION button
• Has way to report problems, 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, sign up, 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

• FreeBMD is only 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
• Can record these dates in your genealogy program as "Apr-Jun 1867", "2QTR 1867", or "Abt May 1867" (but this is not as precise)
• Event may have been recorded in a later quarter than it really occurred, e.g. birth may not be registered until the beginning of the next year, so you may need to search in later quarters or years
• FreeBMD does not give the exact parish or town where the event occurred, only the Registration District
• There are about 2000 Registration Districts in the UK and more than 10,000 parishes and some Registration Districts contain 10 or 20 church parishes
• Ways to get the exact date knowing the year and quarter (hard to do without ordering the certificate)
  • Order the certificate from the GRO - http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/ - costs £7 and gives more information
  • Look on http://ukbdm.corpex.com/ website -- BDM Exchange -- to see if someone has that certificate and you can get a copy from them
  • Try the IGI on http://www.familysearch.org -- also check the other databases on familysearch
  • Can work back and forth with UK Censuses to try to put the family together
  • Check the next UK Census (1841, 1851, 1861, etc.) to find the husband, wife, and some children to determine which was the spouse's name 
  • May be able to find the marriage in Boyd's Marriage Index knowing possible spouse names
  • If you can determine the parish, you may be able to find the event in a parish register 
  • Other sources - wills for dates, spouse's name, and children; online family trees

• The National Archives - helps, online leaflets, and databases -- http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/ and Research Guide #11
• Vision of Britain - maps and information on jurisdictions -- http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/types/index.jsp  
• 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

• FreeBMD is a very helpful family history tool and is the only completely free index to English and Welsh Civil Registration.

1. Do a search for an event (BMD) of one of your ancestors' surnames (or any other surname) in a 10-year time period surrounding when that event would have occurred to see the form of the search results.  Click on the Registration District, Page Number, INFO button, and GLASSES button to see what happens.
2. Experiment with searching for a surname in a particular Registration District and/or a particular County.
3. Do a marriage search for someone and click on the page number to see who else is listed on that page in that Registration District as married then.  (If there is only one couple shown, they must be the husband and wife.  If there is more than one couple, there will be more than one possible spouse, but you will have narrowed it down to just those few to research further.)