A Great Place to Start (freebmd.org.uk)

Member Name: MI9to5

Product:	freebmd.org.uk
Date:	12/01/09 (196 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's all FREE

Disadvantages: None in my opinion

Freebmd.org is a fantastic website in my opinion, as it provides a large wealth of free information on birth, marriages and deaths.

I have been conducting research into my genealogy for quite some time and found freebmd about 18 months ago whilst browsing on the Internet. The site itself is relatively easy to navigate in my opinion and frequently updated, which is always a bonus.

When you first get to the site you will find yourself on a homepage that offers you many options. For the beginning genealogist you simply click on the search button and then begin searching for whatever it is you want.

The search page itself is more than adequate in my opinion and easy to understand for the start. On this page you simply type is as much information about the record you would like to find as you have and let the search engine on the site do the rest. If you have limited information however the site can still be of use and I have used it very successfully in this way many times. This page gives you the option to select what type of record you are looking for: birth, marriage or death or just do a general search across all records. You also have the option to specify a district or a county and can also limited the dates that the site will search the database between.

Whichever method you search with the database will produce a list of results, which will be shown on a new page. The results are again shown to you in a way that is very simple to follow. The quarter and year that the result was found in will be shown first and then below it a list of all records that match your search. The next quarter and year will then be shown and so on and so forth.

If one of the records that you spot captures your eye you can then look for more information. If the record is a marriage record you can click on the page number given next to it and you will be taken to a small list that contains between 3 and 7 other names of people. One of those people will be the spouse of the before specified person. If it is a birth record you may be able to find out the mothers maiden name and if the record is a death record then you may be given the deceased age, which may in turn enable you to search for their birth.

Some records also come with the option to view the original scan that the data was transcribed from. This is a useful tool if one of your ancestors has a funny surname or first name spelling that transcribers may have got wrong or if you simply want to verify the details.

The mention of transcribers leads me on to my next point about freebmd. Since February last year I have been involved with their transcription program and have found it to be very rewarding. The program is of course voluntary and so has no monetary value but the satisfaction of realising that you are helping many others access data about their family history is more than enough for me.

It is relatively simple to join their transcription program and many syndicates do not require you to have any access to specialist equipment. Just because it is easy to join the program however does not mean that the site is full of uselessly transcribed pieces of information, as each transcription is done by more than one person to cut down on errors and then checked by a syndicate leader. You simply transcribe as much as you can whenever you can and any effort is welcomed greatly.

You may be able to tell from what I have written that I am a big fan of the freebmd website and that is definitely true. I think that it is a site that deserves a lot of credit as it does provide free access to information with free being the most important word. It is probably a good place to point out that official birth, marriage and death records didn't begin until 1837 and so no records before this are held on the site. You may also like to know that it is not possible to access extremely up to date birth, marriages or deaths for legal reasons and applications to do so must be made to the registry office in question.

If you're trying to find out about the genealogy of your family then freebmd is definitely a site that you should keep in mind.

Summary: A great website for both amateur and professional genealogists.