Latterday Saints (LDS) -- Free Census Site, & FreeBMD etc (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, January 23, 2012, 00:21 (4487 days ago) @ Paul Andrews

Hi MrsB,
I'm glad you found the FreeReg site useful, I'll certainly be revisiting it now, thanks !

For the record it has two sister sites, FreeCen and FreeBMD. As always, it seems best to open the following links into a new window or tab.
http://freeukgen.rootsweb.com/

In my experience FreeCen hasn't been too useful, as you know it's still a "work in progress" site and many areas of the UK are still not covered including some of Glostershire methinks, but yes of course it's still worth trying and I hope it works for others.

On the contrary I use FreeBMD regularly and recommend it most highly, particularly as it allows fairly recent searches upto 1983. It seems to offer total coverage throughout our area. All three sites rely on volunteer transcribers hence the variation in "service", for some areas of the UK the coverage is patchy as the PRs havent yet been transcribed onto the site. However FreeBMD ONLY searches for exactly the same spelling as we enter into the search box, unlike GlosBMD for example. As a tricky name may have been spelt differently at the time it was registered, or transcribed, so you need to search a few times using all the various likely (and unlikely) spelling variations to ensure you find all the relevant PRs the site contains. HOWEVER it's still a very usefull site indeed, especially good as once its displayed the results it's quick and easy to browse down the list and you can often spot likely trends in a name, or likely family members within a county, etc etc. All these sites warts & all are VERY welcome and much appreciated by tightfisted researchers like me !

On the subject of free internet FH websites, especially useful for Census Research, is the US based site of the Church of Latterday Saints which is also well worth trying especially if your ancestors are likely to have emigrated.

https://familysearch.org/

However considerable patience and time is often needed when searching, like many search engines it's wise to not input too much data at once thro too many filters. My advise is to set low targets and gradually try to narrow down. For examples and some advice please see this thread from earlier tonight;
http://forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=35294

The Glos BMD site is excellent and unlike this FoD site also includes Registry Office Marriages as well as Church ones(aka P.R.s - Parish Registers). The data entry box allows you to enter just the first few characters of a name, it will then list all names starting with this, especially handy for names of variable spelling. The tabulated results can then be easily sorted for ease of reading by clicking the column headings, eg chronologically, name, etc. It is certainly a very user-friendly site which is fast to operate, so always worth a look, perhaps to focus your searches on other less user-friendly websites. (UPDATE - Sadly this site now demands a year is input when searching, it will only display results with a couple of years of the searched-year, a shame but there it it, its still an excellent resource to use alongside FreeBMD).
http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/bmd/

Finally Glos Archives have another site which is especially good for non-conformists etc;
records such as Wills or Gaol Records may be purchased on-lne, altho it seems some of the records are also available from the subscription sites such as Ancestry.
http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/genealogy/Search.aspx

Both these sites may be found within the overall Archives website which is
http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/article/107703/Archives-Homepage