Genealogy Chat

or do others find free BMD difficult to get any results from?
Is there an idiot's guide anywhere ???? LOL

Hi Teresa,

I have found FreeBMD difficult on various occasions. Sometimes it was because it was me being dippy, rather than the site.

For example, I often put the person's first name and surname in the wrong boxes, (possibly because it's the opposite way round to Ancestry searches).

On other occasions I have found FreeBMD to be frustratingly slow.

Another thing I have noticed is that if I search for a person's birth, marriage or death via Ancestry, it comes up with records on FreeBMD that I haven't been able to find when using the FreeBMD search directly.

So, not sure if it's me or the site, but I tend to agree with you.

Liz

With FreeBMD sometimes less is more in using search also I use a range of years when searching as sometimes what you have been told by family isnt alawys the full truth.
Remember too that boundaries have changed many times over the years and may not be in the County you thought they were. I often use all district all counties when doing a search.
You may never find a birth pre 1875 as it wasnt compulsory to register till then, many thought having the child baptised was all that was needed. Intrusion in their private affairs wasnt welcome by having to register a birth

I usually start with quite specific information - name, place and years -as sometimes it all just fits. Then I widen the search to include more years and maybe just the county.
The phonetic name search is a godsend, especially for less common names.
What about giving us an example of a problem and you might see what is going wrong?

Jan

Golden rule when searching is to start with as little criteria as possible then add more if you get too many results. Also remember that all the criteria you have entered must match otherwise you get nothing. Some people are under the misapprehension that searches are based on either or matching, which isn't the case in this instance. The more info you enter the longer the search will take too,

Click on the word 'here' in the sentence near the top of the search page.

"A fuller explanation of how to get the most out of your search is here."

Ancestry's 'free' bmd data is taken from Free BMD, so in theory, at least, you should get the same results, but because the search engines are different they may be slight discrepancies.