Genealogy Chat

I have been reading quite a few threads lately where people have been saying that you need to sign up for BMDs on ancestry as they are complete, whereas the freebmds do not show all the records. This has confused me slightly - in my defence I will say that I am suffering from jet-lag - but I would still like to clear this up. I have registered as a member of Ancestry paying £70 odd or whatever it is for an annual subscription. Does this mean that I automatically have access to the BMDs? When I go into the BMDs via my log in, is it only the full one that I get, or do I need to do something else to see these?? All I seem to get when I do a search on a person with a country and county of birth, is a whole list of people with the same/similar name, varying for the births to the census records. Is this right?? Will I ever learn?? Thanks in anticipation Shirls

Hi Shirley You are getting all those results because you haven't ticked 'exact matches only'. If you tick that box, you will get them sorted into census, BMDs etc. If you log in and seacrh for someone from the front page, you won't get any results coming up from the full indexes. To get these you actually have to click on 'England and Wales BMD Indexes' and then you should get the option to choose 'Complete BMD Index ranges and images 1837-1983'. Sam x

Hi When you search for BMDs on Ancestry there are two sets of data. the one set comes from FREEBMD and is transcribed but only covers earlier years, as they are still transcribing, the 2nd set is the same as you get from findmypast where you have to look at the original pages of each quarter. regards Jo

Oh, I thought that if I ticked 'exact matches only' it would then limit my chance of finding someone if their name had been spelt slightly differently?? Again, haven't really got a clue what I'm doing sometimes and it is only through reading these threads that I sometimes get a grasp of the best ways to search. S

Hi What you need to do is click on search tab and then down the right side scroll down and click on birth marriages and deaths, then scroll down again and you will see Search Individual Birth, Marriage, & Death Collections: and scroll again and look for England & Wales, Birth Index: 1837-1983 - Free Index. This one is the full index. Hope this helps Bev

Thanks for asking this question Shirley - I have been searching through so many pages and now I have tried the way that Sam suggested I have found what I wanted to know! It justs shows! Thanks Sam!

Sorry to contradict Sam, but using Exact matches does mean many records are not shown - I have just done a search for a John Lyn* born 1853 in Birmingham, using exact matches, and only four results came up - none of them the John I was looking for. Unticking Exact brought up several pages, but I found the man I was looking for. Incidentally, Alternate names on Ancestry are coming up much faster now. I posted one on the 1st March and it is already there.

Potty Postans, I didn't say that all records are shown, the question asked was 'all I seem to get when I do a search on a person with a country and county of birth, is a whole list of people with the same/similar name, varying for the births to the census records. Is this right??' . Ticking exact matches at least sorts them into censuses and BMD info. Sam x

Interesting discussion - nudging for later