"Access the Birth, Marriage and Death Index for nothing"

[mc8]

I've had another trawl around today-I agree that the indexing is poor and I think it was probably done is some bulk processing centre rather than freebmd transcribers who are used to old handwriting. Also, the image quality on some of the handwritten pages is far worse than the same sheets on another site that I use.
I think the pages are all there-but because they are incorrectly indexed (eg Kemp as Remp), they don't come up in the search

there doesn't seem to be a mechanism for reporting errors

[northern_rose]

there doesn't seem to be a mechanism for reporting errors

Top right hand corner of the image page has a link to report errors click on something like "having problems with this page/image".

I reported one page that came up for Dutton's but was actually names beginning R! There were so many wrong I gave up!

[lizdb]

Thanks for tips, will go back another time and see what I can find.

Yes, I did report them.

But what got me is how unnecessary it is, when it is so obvious how it works, as an alphabetrical list. We are not talking old writing than it hard to decipher (not for the years in question anyway) but a typewritten alphabetical list - so even if you thought you saw a Bowley in the middle of the Rowleys SURELY you wouldn't just take is as fact and wrongly index a page because of?

I will calm down eventually!!

[Ringrose]

I am a subscriber to Ancestry and I did get an e-mail from them .Had the same problem with wrong initial letter  but sometimes just below there is anoter entry which is correct. I did a 20 year search for one family name and several deaths. Only 2 years dec 1925 and Jan 1926 were either too black to read -one looked as if a cup of water was spilt over it. One record I was looking for could have been onthese pages. Having ruled out lots of other years I will now contact the local registry office about the name I am looking for.
I think it is super to be able to open up the 20th century from home . I was always a bit worried about using 1837, Genealogist or Family Relative sites as my money would disappear rapidly!!!I dont imagine any of these site sare happy!

Ringrose

[loo]

Can anyone give me any encouragement as to whether I am likely to find a death in the registry office that I cannot find on 1837? 

[mnmilt]

I'm ecstatic that Ancestry has put this information on their website.  As many of you have pointed out it avoids using 1837online and the "pay per view" issue.  What has surprised me is the lack of gratitude and satisfaction that I have sensed in a large number of these posts.  Since when has genealogy been easy?  We are always plagued by transcription errors whether they be from suppliers or our own difficulty in reading old handwriting (or simply hitting the wrong key on the keyboard).  We often have to use creative and lateral thinking to figure out where our ancestors are hiding.

Have our standards become so high that we would rather wait for perfection (for free) rather than take something a bit suboptimal sooner?  I'd rather not wait.  I also don't want to discourage any companies such as Ancestry from making this information available. 

Just my humble opinion

Mark

[trish251]

I've been a subscriber to Ancestry for a few months and have only just discovered the 1984 - 2000 Index (which is not free). Has this always been there?

I've also just found that the new images are listed as a BETA file - hence errors should be expected and corrections will no doubt be made.

I think it was the 1851 census that finally convinced me to subscribe & it has been significant in assisting my research - probably the best value I have got in genealogy expenditure (I have spent similar on ScotlandsPeople for many less census images - and that would be my No 2 value expenditure).

All I need now is for English & Australian certificates to cost the same as the Scotland images ( 1 pound) and my life from a genealogy point of view would be very happy     

Trish

[piedstilt]

I've finally found the BMD index pages through ancestry.uk - they don't seem to show up on ancestry.com.

I'm with Mark - I think it is great to get this sort of access without having to worry about how much each page is costing. Though, sod's law, now I am confronted with it I can't think of a single person to look up!

While I was looking I suddenly got a pop-up survey form from/about Ancestry. Couldn't resist filling it in - basically I have been a big fan for years and couldn't do without it.

Two interesting questions at the end:

If you were to give the web site two pieces of advice what would those be?

If you should mention two things you found especially good about the website, what would they be?

My advice was to stop changing things for change's sake (I'm still sore about being no longer able to enlarge images without upgrading my internet software); and I expressed concern that their increasing monopoly might encourage them to increase fees.

My good things were their brilliant search engine and their census material - albeit needing improved indexing.

Any more suggestions?

Ros

[UKgirl]

Hello piedstilt,

I also had a panicky couple of days of not being able to find them on Ancestry.com (as opposed to Ancestry.co.uk), but they are there for the finding:

Home page>

right-hand side, bottom part, "recently added databases">

England & Wales Birth Index, etc.                       01/18/2006

Heavens knows why they did not made them more prominent!!! They were/still are (?) really hard to find!!

But they seem to change the design of their pages constantly, so by the time you read this, the design may already have changed.

Anyway, like you, having found them at last, I can hardly think of anyone left to look up!!

Oh well...........

UKgirl