FreeBMD is a UK-based

charitable organisation A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a ch ...

and website founded in 1998, and established as charity in 2003 to create a free

transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...

of the indexes to Births, Marriages and Deaths (BMD) for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

from 1837 to 1983. It also provides on-line access to images of the pages of the BMD indexes. Since 2014 FreeBMD has been part of Free UK Genealogy.

History

FreeBMD was founded in 1998 by

Ben Laurie Ben Laurie is an English software engineer. He is currently the Director of Security at The Bunker Secure Hosting. Laurie wrote Apache-SSL, the basis of most SSL-enabled versions of the Apache HTTP Server. He developed the MUD ''Gods'', which was ...

, Graham Hart and Camilla Von Massenbach, with the intention of creating a searchable version 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 ...

indexes of England and Wales. The three founders were joined in 1999 by Dave Mayall. The project became a registered charity in 2003. In 2005, FreeBMD absorbed the formerly separate, but closely allied, projects FreeCEN and FreeREG, bringing all three projects under a single trustee body, while retaining autonomous day-to-day management. In 2014, the name was changed to Free UK Genealogy, to better reflect their aims. In 2016, it became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). , FreeBMD has transcribed over 288 million distinct records, which represents the overwhelming majority of births, marriages and deaths registered in England and Wales from 1837 to 1997. In 2015 Dr Pat Reynolds was appointed executive director, in succession to Darren Wright.

Activities

FreeBMD is engaged in an ongoing project to transcribe the General Register Office (GRO) of England and Wales indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths. In 1999 they secured an agreement with the GRO to publish records that were more than 100 years old and initially concentrated on transcribing the marriage indexes, with births and deaths to a lesser degree.Christian, P., 'The Genealogists Internet', 3rd Edition, The National Archives (2005), pp 50-53. . However, in 2003 the GRO agreed an open policy to transcribe ''all'' of the data and, since that time FreeBMD has transcribed births, marriages and deaths for later years. FreeBMD uses volunteer transcribers. By 2018 over 12000 volunteers had helped the project, transcribing from microfiches of the original register pages and also submitting individual entries. Most transcriptions for FreeBMD are created using specially-written safe software WinBMD and BMDVerify available from the FreeBMD website.

Membership

The organisation's facilities are available to all without the need to become a member. Those who transcribe data for the project sign up for membership online, in order to allow access to the relevant facilities.

Awards and reputation

In 2007, FreeBMD was awarded the

Prince Michael of Kent Prince Michael of Kent, (Michael George Charles Franklin; born 4 July 1942) is a member of the British royal family, who is 51st in the line of succession to the British throne as of September 2022. Queen Elizabeth II and Michael were firs ...

Award by 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 ...

. The same year, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' selected FreeBMD as one of the 50 best "family history" websites.Christian, Peter
"Family History: The 50 best websites"
''The Guardian'', 14 April 2007, accessed 7 December 2011

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.freebmd.org.uk/ Family history societies in the United Kingdom British genealogy websites