Genealogy Chat

See below in a mo........

It is REALLY important when using FreeBMD to understand that it is still ''work in progress''. The coverage (1837 to about 1910, so far) is NOT complete and some time frames are extremely thinly covered indeed. I have seen numerous threads where people trace a GRO entry and think it must be theirs because ''it is the only one'' - How many people buy the wrong certificate and end up doing someone elses family tree because of this?? Please, if you are using FreeBMD, take the time to check the coverage of the time period you are investigating!!! To check coverage, do this: If you are in the Search Screen of FreeBMD, click on ''FreeBMD Main Page'' (bottom left of screen) Click ''Information'' Scroll down to Statistics and click on ''Coverage Charts'' Sellect ''Births'', ''Marriages'' or 'Deaths'' and then view the graphs to see what is covered and, even more importantly, WHAT IS NOT!! Also, note this, which FreeBMD states at the beginning of the charts: ''A value of 100% does not GUARANTEE that all entries have been transcribed'' Happy Hunting!! Merry - PS - Please, also see what Little nell has written - 4th reply beneath this one!!!

I just can't bear it when I read people asking for lookups such as, ''marriage of William Hardy to Mary between about 1855 and 1860''..... Responses give, say, four different possibles and the threader, says, ''Oh it must be the first one, because that fits with the first childs dob........thanks I can get back another generation now''........ Aaagggghhhh - makes me want to rush and get one of the children's birth certs myself, to make sure!!! Merry

nudgie, for evening people.....

Good point Merry. Ditto finding a baptism of the right name/age on the LDS site and assuming its the right one. There are lots of parishes not on the IGI, lots of parishes on the IGI but with very limited dates and lots of people who were baptised in other denominations/not baptised at all. nell

I realised that it was a work in progress, but have never looked at this page and was amazed that some years are not transcribed at all. Thanks for pointing this out. Jojo

Just wanted to add another tip, I've found several relatives by just putting in a surname and time frame, then clicking on the spectacle symbol at the side and checking the original page, it would seem that not all the names have been listed yet but they sometimes show on the original page. Not too good at explaining but hope you get what I mean.

Yes, that's a good one Grace. I have quite often found, on a quarter that shows as 100% transcribed, that - for instance: You search for ''Smith, births'' and the list that comes up starts at ''A Smith'', but ends with ''T Smith'' - what about all those William Smiths??? If you click the spectacles you find that one page of Smiths ends with Thomas, so they have not yet begun the next sheet of Smiths. However, as a percentage of the whole quarter, the missing Smith's won't blip the 100% figure.... This makes it sound as if I am somehow critcising FreeBMD - I certainly do NOT mean it to sound that way - (have done plenty of transcribing myself, so know what it's like!!) I'm just trying to point out that the old, ''Less is more'' when you are searching, can tell you a lot about the data you are searching in!! ie - doing a general search of the surname you are after to see what comes up.....This can also give you an idea if the ''frequency'' of a name in an area (that is PC for common/rare!). Some names I have never heard of turn out to be every other family in some counties! Happy Hunting - am off to Devon in an hour - back next Wednesday!!! Merry