History
Title Research Group
In 1965, a small group of professional genealogists and probate researchers called themselves "Title Research". They did much of their research using microfiche 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 (GRO), and the following year began work to put this on an internet website.Findmypast.co.uk1837online
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 Census in the United Kingdom, UK Censuses, passenger lists, and other databases were added to the site, the first being an index of the United Kingdom Census 1861, 1861 England and Wales Census in 2005.Findmypast
1837online rebranded as Findmypast in November 2006 because its scope had spread beyond the GRO registers, and was awarded the Queen's Awards for Enterprise, Queen's Award for Innovation in 2007 for the "provision of public internet access to official genealogy records".Businesslink.gov.uNew 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 (magazine), Family Tree'' 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... [but] the 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... [but] I 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 FamilySearch, Family Search 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.ukPartnerships and acquisitions
Findmypast has partnerships with several family history organisations, libraries and archives, including the Federation of Family History Societies, the Society of Genealogists, FamilySearch (through which members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints get free FindMyPast accounts), The British Library, the Imperial War Museum, The National Archives (United Kingdom), The National Archives and the National Archives of Ireland. 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, a British company that specialises in DNA testing and analysis.In the media
Findmypast began sponsoring the UKTV channel Yesterday (TV 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.References
External links
* {{DCThomson British genealogy websites Companies established in 2003 Companies based in the London Borough of Hackney