Margaret in Burton
17-06-10, 13:53
Just had this email:
We are delighted to announce the launch of our brand new fully indexed 1837-2006 birth records. These will be available within the next month as the first part of a completely new version of the England & Wales birth, marriage & death (BMD) records on findmypast.co.uk
Findmypast.co.uk was the first website to digitise the BMDs seven years ago, and we hope our completely new versions will make your research much easier. We have made a considerable investment to digitise these records again from scratch, which will give you a much better experience. The project has so far involved over 1,000 people and will result in over a quarter of a billion records being digitised.
Work is continuing on the Marriage and Death records, which should be available by the end of the year.
What does this mean?
At present our BMDs are indexed by the first and last name on a page, so you have to view the page of records and then find your ancestor on it. Our new fully indexed records will list all the names individually so when you search, your ancestor comes up immediately. This means that instead of having to view a number of records to find your ancestor, you should now be able to view them directly from the search results.
We've also made some enhancements to the search, which work around some of the quirks of the records themselves and should give you a much better chance to track down your ancestor quickly.
Some of the benefits of our new fully indexed birth records:
•The variants search is much more powerful so it will provide you with more relevant results, e.g., Lizzie Maud will find Elizabeth Matilda
•You can now search all records from 1837 to 2006 from a single search screen (previously you had to choose between 1837-1983 and 1984-2006)
•You can select multiple historic counties or registration districts
•Unnamed children were extremely common between 1837 and the 1870s - 'unknown' first names will appear in your search results
Credit pricing changes
As well as these improvements, we will be simplifying the pricing of our PayAsYouGo records from 1 July 2010.
Currently there are over 10 different price bands for records which can be quite confusing. From July we will have fewer price bands, grouped into multiples of 5 credits, for example, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30.
In most cases the changes will result in a slight increase in credit prices, in some instances there will be a reduction, and some records will stay the same (for example, 1911 census and passenger lists). Viewing a BMD result will cost 5 credits instead of 1, but thanks to the full indexing of the BMDs, overall a BMD search will cost you less, as you will need to view far fewer records to find the one you want.
A full breakdown of the price change is included below.
Record Current cost in credits New cost in credits from 1 July 2010
Transcript Original image
Civil Service Evidence of Age 1752-1948 7 10
Divorce & matrimonial causes 1858-1903 3 5
England & Wales Births entry/index page 1 5 Free with transcript
Other army lists/roll calls 1 5
Profession lists/directories 1 5
Register of passport applications 1851-1903 3 5
Waterloo Medal Roll 1815 3 5
Other Records 1320-1996 3-12 5 or 10
Parish Records Collection 3-12 5 or 10
We are delighted to announce the launch of our brand new fully indexed 1837-2006 birth records. These will be available within the next month as the first part of a completely new version of the England & Wales birth, marriage & death (BMD) records on findmypast.co.uk
Findmypast.co.uk was the first website to digitise the BMDs seven years ago, and we hope our completely new versions will make your research much easier. We have made a considerable investment to digitise these records again from scratch, which will give you a much better experience. The project has so far involved over 1,000 people and will result in over a quarter of a billion records being digitised.
Work is continuing on the Marriage and Death records, which should be available by the end of the year.
What does this mean?
At present our BMDs are indexed by the first and last name on a page, so you have to view the page of records and then find your ancestor on it. Our new fully indexed records will list all the names individually so when you search, your ancestor comes up immediately. This means that instead of having to view a number of records to find your ancestor, you should now be able to view them directly from the search results.
We've also made some enhancements to the search, which work around some of the quirks of the records themselves and should give you a much better chance to track down your ancestor quickly.
Some of the benefits of our new fully indexed birth records:
•The variants search is much more powerful so it will provide you with more relevant results, e.g., Lizzie Maud will find Elizabeth Matilda
•You can now search all records from 1837 to 2006 from a single search screen (previously you had to choose between 1837-1983 and 1984-2006)
•You can select multiple historic counties or registration districts
•Unnamed children were extremely common between 1837 and the 1870s - 'unknown' first names will appear in your search results
Credit pricing changes
As well as these improvements, we will be simplifying the pricing of our PayAsYouGo records from 1 July 2010.
Currently there are over 10 different price bands for records which can be quite confusing. From July we will have fewer price bands, grouped into multiples of 5 credits, for example, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30.
In most cases the changes will result in a slight increase in credit prices, in some instances there will be a reduction, and some records will stay the same (for example, 1911 census and passenger lists). Viewing a BMD result will cost 5 credits instead of 1, but thanks to the full indexing of the BMDs, overall a BMD search will cost you less, as you will need to view far fewer records to find the one you want.
A full breakdown of the price change is included below.
Record Current cost in credits New cost in credits from 1 July 2010
Transcript Original image
Civil Service Evidence of Age 1752-1948 7 10
Divorce & matrimonial causes 1858-1903 3 5
England & Wales Births entry/index page 1 5 Free with transcript
Other army lists/roll calls 1 5
Profession lists/directories 1 5
Register of passport applications 1851-1903 3 5
Waterloo Medal Roll 1815 3 5
Other Records 1320-1996 3-12 5 or 10
Parish Records Collection 3-12 5 or 10