RootsChat.Com
Census Lookups General Lookups => Census and Resource Discussion => Topic started by: LizzieW on Thursday 15 July 10 17:32 BST (UK)
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Just received this from FindMyPast.
From today there is a significant change in how you can access our birth records. You can now search fully indexed birth records for 1837 to 2006 on findmypast.co.uk
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What makes the fully indexed birth records so useful?
* Your search results will be in the form of a list of individual names, so you won't have to check through pages of records to find your ancestors
* You can search the complete 1837-2006 set of birth records in one go or by one or more counties at a time
* The images of the index pages are completely new and very high quality
* We've added smart search features including name variants
* There are clever search results to get around the quirks of the records, including the GRO's procedure of initialising second names, and records of children unnamed at registration (very common in the Victorian period)
* You can now search by mother's and father's name at the same time to help find those elusive births
I hope the bit I've put in bold really works, just off to try it.
Lizzie
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Oh well, I tried a search for my mysterious g.grandfather between 1850 and 1860 and got some results but with this comment:
Mother's Maiden Name: Not available before 1911 Q3
How disappointing, I was hoping they would have re-transcribed the 1837 to 1911 BMDs.
Lizzie
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I am open to correction here, but wasn't it only around the time of W.W.1 that the mother's name was also included on the GRO records?
Ceeoh
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You're right
The ill-fated Dove/Magpie project was going to add these to the GRO indexes.
Hope the replaement one will
Bob
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I am open to correction here, but wasn't it only around the time of W.W.1 that the mother's name was also included on the GRO records?
Ceeoh
Sept 1/4 of 1911 ;)
Carol
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Well, whatever you all say, I think it's really good - much better that the opposition :)
Instead of all those pages offering the GRO index, we have just a list that we can click on.
Gadget
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How disappointing, I was hoping they would have re-transcribed the 1837 to 1911 BMDs.
Presumably you'd be willing to pay a vast increase in your subscription to cover the cost of such a Herculean task.
I agree with Gadget - I've just tried it out and so far think it's excellent.
Jennifer
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I wonder if they will do the same for the marriage and death index..
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From their website:
We're working on a project to fully index the marriage and death records which we expect to complete by the end of the year.
http://www.findmypast.co.uk/media/news/news-item.jsp?doc=fullyindexedbirths.html
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Oh I completely agree that the index is brilliant, I just wish it had included mother's names pre 1837 as I've already bought about half a dozen wrong certificates trying to find my g.grandfather.
Lizzie
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Excellent, I've just been onto the site, what a change. 8)
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The new search is a vast improvement, and let's hope they do the same with the marriages and deaths :)
I made this comment during the recent Worldcup freebie and guess others did the same, but I assume they have been working on this new release for a while.
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Well, whatever you all say, I think it's really good - much better that the opposition :)
Ancestry have had fully searchable BDMs for some time
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Well, whatever you all say, I think it's really good - much better that the opposition :)
Ancestry have had fully searchable BDMs for some time
I know that as I have Ancestry World! Thus I am able to compare them both and FindMyPast's results are much better
8)
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I tried to register but there is an error on the page. :(
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I just wish it had included mother's names pre 1837
The mother's name only started to be included on the index in about 1911.
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Well, whatever you all say, I think it's really good - much better that the opposition :)
Ancestry have had fully searchable BDMs for some time
I know that as I have Ancestry World! Thus I am able to compare them both and FindMyPast's results are much better
8)
Gadget, in what respect are they much better? (in regard to BMD's only)
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The searching seems to produce better results - probably better transcriptions - and I prefer the layout of the results panel - much clearer.
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The searching seems to produce better results - probably better transcriptions - and I prefer the layout of the results panel - much clearer.
Interesting, Ive just searched for my daughter on FindMyPast and she is not there. Between 1837-2006 there are 4 people registered with that name, FindMyPast only finds 2 of them, Ancestry finds all 4. I tried all different search parameters, but I could not get it to match.
Perhaps it needs a little more time to iron out the discrepancies.
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I really can't comment on your searches. Mine have all come up :)
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Are they even putting up living people?? are they allowed to do that? Might that be the difference I wonder?
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It's up to 2006, Wiggy. The same as Ancestry. It's allowed here.
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For some reason I hadn't cottoned on to that! Hmm - Now that I think about it - I do remember someone commenting about privacy or not with births! You can look up ANYBODY then!! In Britain!!
Must go searching!
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Well, whatever you all say, I think it's really good - much better that the opposition :)
Instead of all those pages offering the GRO index, we have just a list that we can click on.
Gadget
I concur! ;D
Kerry
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For some reason I hadn't cottoned on to that! Hmm - Now that I think about it - I do remember someone commenting about privacy or not with births! You can look up ANYBODY then!! In Britain!!
Must go searching!
I recently had a long conversation with my bank (in India I suspect) and had to establish some security words - the person asked first for a name "Most people use their mother's maiden name" and place "Most people use their place of birth".
Now, with my unusual first name and totally unique surname I wonder just how secure those words are? (Just as well I gave variations).
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I just wish it had included mother's names pre 1837 as I've already bought about half a dozen wrong certificates trying to find my g.grandfather.
As others have mentioned, it's not an issue of previous transcriptions (e.g. FreeBMD) leaving out material from the indexes that could later be included if someone had the resources to retranscribe them. The indexes contain a finite amount of information that varies from time to time. The only way you'll get mothers' maiden names before Q3 1911 or age at death before c.1866 or date of birth before 197x (can't remember precisely) is by looking at the certificate.
I haven't had the chance to try the new search yet, but I will. I find FreeBMD much more accurate than the Ancestry transcriptions of 1916 onwards, and also prefer the way the information is presented on FreeBMD even before 1916 (where the information is identical on FreeBMD and Ancestry). Ancestry pushes you towards opening the image to find what you're after (quarter, volume and page) rather than just giving it to you with the minimum number of clicks, as FreeBMD does. I'll be interested to see how the FindMyPast index matches on this criterion and also transcription accuracy.
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How fantastic, haven't had an email yet but no doubt I will.
I shall have fun with that next week. Especially with the more recent branches of my family :D
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I dont see much improvement. It is just the same as looking at FreeBMD.
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I dont see much improvement. It is just the same as looking at FreeBMD.
The whole point is that the FindMyPast births are now indexed,whereas before you had to trawl through 1/4 by 1/4 and year by year to find someone.
Free BMD is a work in progress,FindMyPast is complete up to 2006.
Carol
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How disappointing, I was hoping they would have re-transcribed the 1837 to 1911 BMDs.
Presumably you'd be willing to pay a vast increase in your subscription to cover the cost of such a Herculean task.
I agree with Gadget - I've just tried it out and so far think it's excellent.
Jennifer
Pulling out the pre-1911 surnames would be Herculean but I think it could be 'profitable' for seller and buyer if managed properly. From the buyer's side, think of all those certificates you have ordered only to find out that the mother/wife could not possibly be right for the individual you want.
A few District Register Office birth indexes have been supplemented with mother's name pre-1911, with similar arrangement for marriages, including those remarriage details. If if can be done at a District level, why not for the General -I think my above qualification of 'managed properly' is the key.
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Pulling out the pre-1911 surnames would be Herculean but I think it could be 'profitable' for seller and buyer if managed properly. From the buyer's side, think of all those certificates you have ordered only to find out that the mother/wife could not possibly be right for the individual you want.
A few District Register Office birth indexes have been supplemented with mother's name pre-1911, with similar arrangement for marriages, including those remarriage details. If if can be done at a District level, why not for the General -I think my above qualification of 'managed properly' is the key.
You cannot be serious, to quote a comedy programme ::)
Pulling out the mother's surnames would mean accessing all the full certificates, 1837-1911 ::) ::) ::)
Can you imagine if it went to a private company and the GRO charged £9.25 a throw :o :o :o
Gadget
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But as per my previous email it is being done - or should I say it was being done as the Dove/Magpie project.
The replacement project for this has had few details available.
Hopefully it will also jave the same details
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Search features not as good as on Ancestry and they are year behind.
Obviously there are transcription errors whoever manually transcribes them. As an Ancestry member I have found many.
I suppose it is useful now that FindMyPast have an index, you can still use that index for FREE, then if you find an entry that doesn't appear on Ancestry you know you have to start searching but then you have a clue from the FindMyPast search.
I bet FindMyPast won't provide spouses for marriages when they go online.
Overall I am disppointed with FindMyPast search index menu
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I've just done some test searches on FindMyPast. I haven't looked for enough records to form an opinion as to transcription quality (although I note that my own birth entry is correctly transcribed, which it isn't on Ancestry!), but on the basis of the census transcriptions on FindMyPast and Ancestry, I'd expect FindMyPast's to be better and for them to correct errors more quickly and more authoritatively and permanently than Ancestry.
A very useful tool on FindMyPast is the 'include variants' option for first name and surname, which does genuinely pull up only variants. If you search Ancestry without 'exact search', it'll do daft things like pull up everyone born in the quarter you select even though you've provided a (partial) name.
But you still have to click further than the first results page in order to get quarter, volume and page information. This isn't quite as bad as Ancestry, where for some reason you have to actually open the image (or hover over it to see the URL, at least) to get the quarter, but it's still a major downside compared to FreeBMD, where everything's right there on the first screen after you click Search.
Another thing I haven't tried yet is to do very broad searches. If you try this on FindMyPast's censuses, you regularly get timeouts, which is something that Ancestry seems to be immune to.
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Another thing I haven't tried yet is to do very broad searches. If you try this on FindMyPast's censuses, you regularly get timeouts, which is something that Ancestry seems to be immune to.
I've never had a timeout searching FindMyPast's censuses and, especially when searching for my husband's ancestors, I do broad searches for hours on end.
Lizzie
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Somebody's lucky not getting time outs, 1911 census is notorious when you do a broad search
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doubtless FindMyPast will have the same constraints about 3rd party searches as they do for the 1911 census.