Findmypast is a UK-based online

genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...

service owned, since 2007, by British company

DC Thomson DC Thomson is a media company based in Dundee, Scotland. Founded by David Couper Thomson in 1905, it is best known for publishing ''The Dundee Courier'', ''The Evening Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Post'' newspapers, and the comics ''Oor Wull ...

. The website hosts billions of searchable records of census, directory and historical record information. It originated in 1965 when a group of genealogists formed a group named "Title Research". The first internet website went live in 2003. As of 2018, Findmypast has partnered with many other genealogical organisations and hosts much of their data. It started sponsoring Yesterday, a

UKTV UKTV Media Limited, simply known as UKTV, is a British multi-channel broadcaster, which, since 2019, has been wholly owned by BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide), a commercial subsidiary of the BBC. It was formed on 1 November 1992 through ...

channel, in 2010 and produced a series of programmes.

History

Title Research Group

In 1965, a small group of professional genealogists and

probate research Probate research deals with finding heirs and proving their right to an inheritance. In some estates there may be no known heirs, or there may be missing heirs whose names are known but their contact information is not. There also may be known hei ...

ers called themselves "Title Research". They did much of their research using

microfiche Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...

records. In 2001, Title Research started an in-house project, called "1837 online", to produce a computerised version of the birth, marriage and death register pages of the

General Register Office General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth nations and Ireland. The GRO is the government agency responsible for the recording of vital record ...

(GRO), and the following year began work to put this on an internet website.Findmypast.co.uk
Company History timeline
Retrieved 2013-09-02. Another online project,

FreeBMD FreeBMD is a UK-based charitable organisation and website founded in 1998, and established as charity in 2003 to create a free transcription of the indexes to Births, Marriages and Deaths (BMD) for England and Wales from 1837 to 1983. It also pr ...

, had already been working on this since 1999, gradually transcribing the indexes through the efforts of volunteers and publishing searchable indexes freely on the internet.Christian, P., 'The Genealogists Internet', The National Archives, 3rd Edition (2005), pp 50-53.

1837online

In April 2003, www.1837online.com went live on the internet. This was a pay-per-view service allowing access to images of the pages of the original GRO registers. Initially there was no index of individual entries for the period before 1984, but subsequent years had already been electronically recorded by the GRO and were fully searchable. Gradually the UK Censuses, passenger lists, and other databases were added to the site, the first being an index of the 1861 England and Wales Census in 2005.

Findmypast

1837online

rebrand Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...

ed as Findmypast in November 2006 because its scope had spread beyond the GRO registers, and was awarded the Queen's Award for Innovation in 2007 for the "provision of public internet access to official genealogy records".Businesslink.gov.u
The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation - Winners List
Retrieved 18 December 2016. In 2007 it was purchased from Title Research Group by

. In 2008 Findmypast published the 1851 and 1901 censuses online, and it also gained a license to publish the

United Kingdom Census 1911 The United Kingdom Census 1911 of 2 April 1911 was the 12th nationwide census conducted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The total population of the United Kingdom was approximately 45,221,000, with 36,070,000 recorded in England ...

. In 2011 it became sponsor of the

Society of Genealogists The Society of Genealogists (SoG) is a UK-based educational charity, founded in 1911Fowler, S School of Advanced Study, University of London. Date unknown. Retrieved 2011-10-30. to "promote, encourage and foster the study, science and knowledge ...

in their centenary year and agreed a reciprocal arrangement where each would give access to one another's online databases. A sister site for Australia and New Zealand was launched in May 2010 with findmypast.ie launched in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...

a year later,
Who do you think you are?
', Independent.ie, October 16, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-01. followed by findmypast.com in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in July 2012.

New user interface

In early April 2014, findmypast changed their website interface and received subscriber complaints demanding the return of the old site. The editor of ''Who Do You Think You Are'' magazine wrote: "Nothing annoyed people more than the feeling that they weren't being listened to". Findmypast responded, saying they now had "a system in place to analyse all of our customers' feedback and make the necessary improvements as quickly as possible". In June 2014 ''

Family Tree A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms. Representations of ...

'' magazine ran a three-page article on Findmypast's new interface. A Findmypast spokesperson stated, "The new search has fantastic potential" but "constant tweaks are being made to the site". They stated that they would extend customers' subscriptions if they were having difficulty. ''Family Tree'' responded that it "all sounds very encouraging... utthe technologists had perhaps won out over the genealogists". The Family Tree forum administrator stated, "After wrestling with the new website ...for nearly a month, I was on the point of giving up... utI can now see that there are indeed many improvements and benefits". The magazine concluded by stating that "Many of our questions remain unanswered and we are still waiting to hear what findmypast has to say". A researcher from

Family Search FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and is closely connected with the church's Family Histo ...

reported in December 2014 that she found using the Findmypast web site had got easier.

Recent history

As of 2017, the website hosted a wide variety of census, directory, historical record, church and newspaper information available from across the English-speaking world and tends to concentrate on the former British empire and the UK.Findmypast.co.uk
Family history records on findmypast.co.uk
Retrieved 2013-09-02. Findmypast has billions of searchable records worldwide but, though it is possible to search their indexes for free, a payment or subscription was required to access the full data.Findmypast.co.uk
Site Tour
Retrieved 2013-09-02. In November 2015, Findmypast and the National Archives made the 1939 national identity register available online.

Partnerships and acquisitions

Findmypast has partnerships with several family history organisations, libraries and archives, including the

Federation of Family History Societies The Federation of Family History Societies ("The Federation") is a United Kingdom-based charitable organisation. In 2019 it rebranded to the Family History Federation Its stated principal aims are "to co-ordinate and assist the work of societies ...

, the

FamilySearch FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and is closely connected with the church's Family Histo ...

(through which members of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

get free FindMyPast accounts),

The British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

, the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

The National Archives National archives are central archives maintained by countries. This article contains a list of national archives. Among its more important tasks are to ensure the accessibility and preservation of the information produced by governments, both ...

and the

National Archives of Ireland The National Archives of Ireland ( ga, Cartlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is the official repository for the state records of Ireland. Established by the National Archives Act 1986, taking over the functions of the State Paper Office (founded 17 ...

. In June 2014 it acquired two more family history providers, Origins.net and the United States-based Mocavo.com. In July 2018 Findmypast announced it was partnering with

Living DNA Living DNA is a UK-based company that specialises in DNA testing and analysis whose head office is in the UK with facilities in the USA and Denmark. The service is to provide deep ancestry details from all around the world, using a unique proc ...

, a British company that specialises in DNA testing and analysis.

In the media

Findmypast began sponsoring the

channel Yesterday in July 2010, and another TV series named ''Find My Past'', funded by findmypast.co.uk, was broadcast from October 2011.Bradshaw, T.
Find My Past set for full product TV placement
' ''The Financial Times'', October 14, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-01. UKTV stated that it was the first example of a product placement and

advertiser funded programming Advertiser-funded programming (AFP) is a recent term applied to a break away from the modern model of television funding in place since the early 1960s. Since that time, programmes have normally been funded by a broadcaster and they re-couped the ...

deal for a factual TV series in the country. Presented by Chris Hollins, the series won best Content Partnership at the 2012 Broadcast Digital Awards. An American remake called "Follow your Past" was shown on

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

in 2016. The website is frequently used as a resource in the family history television show '' Who Do You Think You Are?''

References

External links

* {{DCThomson British genealogy websites Companies established in 2003 Companies based in the London Borough of Hackney