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HOW TO RESEARCH YOUR FAMILY TREE ON THE INTERNETBirth Death and Marriage Indexes Birth, marriage and death certificates are one of the most useful sources of information in completing your family tree. Indexes to these records are available at several websites on the internet. "Free BDM" is a searchable database of birth, marriage and death records from 1837, when central records began, until about 1909 which is as far as they have got with the indexing. Although the index is not yet complete it is still a very useful when searching for pre-twentieth century events. Complementing Free BMD with its indexed database of births, marriages and deaths from 1866 to 1920 is the pay to view website "familyrelatives.org". You then have a big gap in indexed records until 1984 when the website "ancestry.co.uk" has indexed records up to 2004. The un-indexed records from 1921 until 1983 can be searched by going through the images of the index pages also on "ancestry.co.uk" in the same way that you would search the books at the Family Record Centre in London. Combined with the census data available as described above you can see that a years subscription to "ancestry.co.uk" may be the best thing to do. The website "1837online.com" also has a complete set of images of the registration index. For pre 1837 records, before centralized registration, the "Family Search" website has the International Genealogical Index which is a selection of church records going back several centuries. "parishregister.com" has baptismal records for many parishes in London docklands. Scotland For your Scottish family research "scotlandspeople.gov.uk" has the Scottish censuses from 1851 to 1901 and births from 1553-1905, marriages 1553 to 1930 and deaths 1855 to 1955 all on a pay to view basis. The added advantage with these records is you can view certificates on-line. |
