Ancestry BMD's?

[Jo Simpsons]

After my initial joy of finding Ancestry have added more BMD's to search for free I thought of all them nights I struggled reading the indexes to transcribe for FreeBMD. I'm wondering how this will affect it?
They say they have more than 250 million names from 1837.
Or is it a good idea to have another reference to help find your family names?

I'm not sure to be pleased or not :confused:
Jo :)

[Peter Goodey]

Ancestry's BMD database IS FreeBMD! It's just not so up to date. Ancestry pay FreeBMD (whether in cash or kind I don't know) to use it.

[Mark]

I think that Jo's referring to the fact that Ancestry now have images of the index pages online for 1837-1983 for FREE. They're "indexed" by the first three letters I think, so you can get to just about the right page from a quick search. But as it's free, it's not a problem

They also have the 1984-2000 GRO dataset of births, marriages and deaths searchable online for FREE.

AND ... they have a (admittedly old) dataset from the FreeBMD project, which allows you to search with wildcards, by area and so on. Also available for FREE.

Mark

[Peter Goodey]

I see what you mean, Mark, but I don't think that's what Jo was talking about.

She spoke specifically about the more difficult task of reading the GRO images and wondered about how Ancestry might affect FreeBMD.

The answer to that is surely "not at all" however you interpret the message.

Now how might the free online provision of GRO images affect 1837online and similar undertakings? That might be a relevant and interesting question!

[Jo Simpsons]

I sort of meant both things really.

If Ancestry have all the index images free on line will FreeBMD still be an on going project? To transcribe the images as before?
I do think 1837 will lose income from this too.
It gave me loads of thoughts and left me wondering all sorts to be honest.
Jo :)

[Mark]

I have little doubt that FreeBMD will continue. And their database allows all sorts of searching that viewing the images alone would take a long time to achieve, eg searching for all births of "Loveday" in Penzance district 1870-1880.

As for how it'll affect 1837 ... that's their business model worry. They'll have to offer something extra over and above the approximate image relating to your surname search.

Mark

[Jo Simpsons]

Youre right Mark. It's easier to search transcribed indexes on FreeBMD.

It just made me think all them hours people have put in to the whole project voluntary. What would become of it.

Jo :)

[Mythology]

"If Ancestry have all the index images free on line will FreeBMD still be an on going project?"

I sincerely hope so, but perhaps it might persuade them to do what I suggested some time ago - that is, to shelve the births and deaths and concentrate their efforts on marriages prior to 1912, as these do not show the partners surname.

Since 1837 online (who, unfortunately, will undoubtedly suffer) came on the scene, GRO index images have, like FreeBMD, been available to anyone with a computer. OK, there's a cost involved, but in most cases it's a very small cost, and at least they are *available*. The GRO index pre 1912, however, will not tell you who the marriage partner is - with FreeBMD you can usually work it out.

While appreciating the work done by all the transcribers, I do feel that the *management* of FreeBMD should make the pre 1912 marriages a priority if they genuinely want to make their project useful rather than a back-patting ego trip.

[Peter Goodey]

"If Ancestry have all the index images free on line will FreeBMD still be an on going project? "

FreeBMD will most certainly continue to be viable and valuable. The provision of images is just an extra for FreeBMD. Its unique selling point will continue to be (a) that it's free and (b) that it is transcribed with all the benefits that a database of transcriptions imply.

"I do think 1837 will lose income from this too."

One would imagine so. But Ancestry being Ancestry I would venture to forecast that as soon as they realise that people are prepared to pay the likes of 1837 online for the convenience of accessing the images, they will cease to provide free access to the images. They're not an organisation known to give very much away!

By the way, the fact that Ancestry provides free access to a copy of the FreeBMD database stems not from altruism on their part but from the agreement they have with FreeBMD!

[Jo Simpsons]

I'm sure Ancestry are well aware that people do and are paying for units to places like 1837.
Ancestry are also giving free access to 1901 census at the moment.
Jo :)

[Mark]

"If Ancestry have all the index images free on line will FreeBMD still be an on going project?"

I sincerely hope so, but perhaps it might persuade them to do what I suggested some time ago - that is, to shelve the births and deaths and concentrate their efforts on marriages prior to 1912, as these do not show the partners surname.

The GRO index pre 1912, however, will not tell you who the marriage partner is - with FreeBMD you can usually work it out.

While appreciating the work done by all the transcribers, I do feel that the *management* of FreeBMD should make the pre 1912 marriages a priority if they genuinely want to make their project useful rather than a back-patting ego trip.

If you look at the status graph for marriages
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/progressM.shtml
you'll see that 1866-1910 is pretty much complete - at least for first keyings of data.

FreeBMD had always been at the mercy of availability of scans, so rather than have idle transcribers, they've done births and then deaths. But AFAIK marriages has been their main target as the first part of B M D to achieve total transcription.

Mark

[Ed McKie]

Amid all the joy, it is not universal....... three weeks ago I coffed up twentyfive quid to 1837 on line !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers..Ed

[Mythology]

Ditto, but as 1837 online will soon have the 1796 onwards death duty register indexes on their site, I don't think I'll have much trouble using up the units. They are something that takes up a lot of my time at the FRC - I won't use NationalArchivist.com because of previous dissatisfaction with their service, but when 1837 online have them it will be one more thing that I can do at home. :)

[Beebee]

I was just about to splash out £50 on 1837 for unlimited access to the BMDs for a year, when I received an e-mail from Ancestry regarding their BMDs, so I thought I'd take a look, seeing as I had been looking on Free BMD recently for some births. Not expecting to find any more info than I already had, I was |jumphappy to see that they have images of the indexes. I'll put my £50 back in my purse and put it towards the certificates. So I'd say 1837 are definately going to loose income.

Beebee.

[Mark]

I presume you got this email from the NationalArchivist on 9 Jan ...

Subject: National Archivist Special Announcement
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 19:34:50 -0000

Special Announcement

Writing your family history just got easier!

We are delighted to announce that 1837 online has acquired the archives currently live on our website national archivist. We believe this is great news for all family historians and genealogists who can only benefit from the merger of these marvellous archives.

This brilliant ‘one stop’ genealogy resource will be available in a few months. Your National Archivist credits will be converted to 1837online units when the merger takes place and you will then be able to use your remaining credits to search all the archives combined on 1837online.

Mark

[Gambrill]

The recent BMD database added to Ancestry for 1837-1983 searches is a BETA version ..... i.e. it is in the testing stage with problems (I expect that's why it's free).

I have spent a day searching the database for entries between 1911 and 1983, and there are many, many missing images and incorrectly labelled images. I found the best arrangement was to search the Ancestry database for say marriages in quarters over 10 years - look at what Ancestry had available; note the gaps in their data (ie they no images); then go to 1837 Online to fill in the gaps.

FreeBMD is still the best for pre-1911, and 1837 Online is superior to Ancestry for accurate indexing and quality of images.

[Mark]

Some of their rapid indexing of pages needs refinement/correction. However I'm yet to find and missing pages. Sometimes a relatively common surname doesn't get any hits in a particular quarter from the search results.

However, if you view an image, any image will do (eg an adjacent quarter), you see a line of links just above it, for instance ...

You are here: Search > England & Wales, Marriage Index: 1837-1983 (Beta) > 1954 > Jan-Feb-Mar > H

... or whatever ... now just navigate the directory structure say by clicking 1954, then choosing on the next page the Apr-May-Jun link, then on the next page the initial letter ... etc etc etc.

Mark

[Mark]

One problem with 1837 online is their "enhancement" of pictures, which can lead to the wrong page numbers being read. There was a thread on B-G recently where this was really the case.

Hopefully Ancestry have adjusted the scanning parameters for the particular film, but haven't optically enhanced the resulting scan image in pursuit of noise reduction etc.

Mark