FreeBMD & GlosBMD sites, some pointers (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, April 15, 2013, 14:31 (4242 days ago) @ goldenfox

Hi Goldenfox,
apologies if I'm missing the point but it appears you're having problems navigating the above websites. If this is the case then hopefully this prior thread will help you, they are both free access websites which give access to the UK BMD Registers taken from 1837.

FreeBMD plans to eventually cover the whole UK, altho in my experience it already seems to offer almost complete coverage across our region, the Ancestry website (and probably others) already use it altho they only include coverage upto 1915, whereas FreeBMD itself gives data upto abt 1960. When searching FreeBMD it will generally only see the exact same names as you enter in the search box, it won't offer alternative spelling variants etc. Also I recommend at first you don't enter full second names into the search box, just use it's initial (eg R. G. FOX not Reynard Golden Fox) this will ensure all likely results are found which will indeed include full first names (when known), and full second names but only upto 1911; searching this way avoids the site missing likely relevant hits. It's then easy to visually scan thro the tabulated results and hopefully spot what you're looking for, altho you may wish to filter for example by county (usually Glos, Herefds and Monmouthshire for "our" ancestors).

GlosBMD is a separate/independent site as far as I'm aware and is one of the official Glos Archives Sites. It's a very "clever" site as does a good job of offering spelling variants, or listing all full first names if you input just an initial, and so on. Unlike this FoD PRs site it gives Registry Office as well as Church Parish Records. Again as with most sites using "search boxes" at first I recommend "less is more" when it comes to inputting your target data. (UPDATE, however in recent years the site demands us to enter a year when searching a name/event, it will only give hits around that time, unlike in the past)

I strongly recommend you use all these sites in combination when searching an individual, they all complement each other to give the fullest possible picture.

I do hope this helps a little, like all such sites "practice makes perfect", the more you experiment using them, trying different levels of input info etc, the more success you'll eventually get.

Happy hunting !

https://forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=35296