FreeBMD vs Ancestry

[Kit]

Ancestry has the BMD indexes upto 1915 which, I thought, they had copied from FreeBMD.

Why then do the 2 sites have different images of the index?

I've had 2 cases of incomplete page numbers on FreeBMD where the index is illegible when you view the original image. On Ancestry, however, the numbers are readable.

[kiterunner]

Yes, ancestry does use FreeBMD's index, but no, they don't use the same images because ancestry have spent lots of money on their own images which are better quality than the ones FreeBMD had to start with. Although recently, ancestry have let FreeBMD use some of their images but a lot of the indexing had already been done from the old ones.

[Kit]

Thanks Kate I learned something new today.

I'm glad they have separate images as I wouldn't have been confident on my orders without it.

[Phoenix]

Do you know whether they are identical images, Kite? ie simply a better viewer?

The big moan when the registers disappeared was that amendments had been made after the "original" microfiching which would not be available to future researchers.

If one is more recent than another, unindexed amendments might be picked up.

[kiterunner]

I think Ancestry refilmed the indexes, but if not then they rescanned them at least. Also FreeBMD took digital photos of some of the pages just before the Family Records Centre closed. So the image for any particular page could be more up-to-date on one site than on the other.