Class:
FREEBMD: THE FREE ONLINE
CIVIL
REGISTRATION INDEX
FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
©Copyright 2007 by Donald R.
Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
Return to Don's
Class Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley PAF Users
Group . This page was last updated
2007-11-18.
WELCOME
AND WHAT THIS CLASS IS ALL ABOUT - 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 PAF Users Group
website http://uvpafug.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.
OVERVIEW
OF FREEBMD
- 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
- 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."
SEARCHING
- 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
- 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
HELPS
AND OTHER INFORMATION ON FREEBMD
- 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
WHAT
TO DO
WITH THE DATA FROM FREEBMD
- 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)
- 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
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CIVIL
REGISTRATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES
CONCLUSION
- FreeBMD
is a very helpful family history tool and is the only completely free
index to English and Welsh Civil Registration.
ASSIGNMENT
- 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.
- Experiment
with searching for a
surname in a particular Registration District and/or a particular
County.
- 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.)
Return to Don's
Class Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley PAF Users
Group.