BMDshare - will it come back? - alternatives?

[bibliotaphist]

I can see that the BMDshare website (www.bmdshare.com) has been displaying the following maintenance message since at least January 2012:

"BMDshare is undergoing essential maintainance (sic) and will be back on-line as soon as possible. Please bear with us during this time and accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience."

Is there anyone here who is close to this website and knows whether the maintenance is likely to be completed? My suspicion is that it is defunct and not being actively maintained, but I'd love to be proved wrong.

I've tried logging in and clicking on the "submit certificate" links, but I just get what looks like a database error ("FF_FORM_TITLE").

Does anyone know of any alternative websites where I can post and share BMD certificate details in a structured and searchable way?

Paul

[panda40]

Not used the site before but there is a contact us button and a form you can fill in. It might be worth asking the site direct for an update of the situation.
Regards panda

[arthurk]

According to one of the lookup sites, the domain has been registered until 2016. The entry gives full details of the person who registered it - name, postal and email addresses. If nothing else works, I'd suggest making contact with one of these.

Arthur

[rosie99]

Does anyone know of any alternative websites where I can post and share BMD certificate details in a structured and searchable way?

Paul

I put the information on freebmd as a postem, that way anyone searching can view the information

Rosie

[bibliotaphist]

Thanks all. I have tried the contact form on the website. Let's see if anyone replies. If not, I'll try the domain registrant.

@rosie99 - have you got an example of one of your FreeBMD postems I could look at, please?

[trystan]

You could of course, use a less structured, although searchable way right here on RootsChat.

Here are the unwanted BMD certificates A-G for example. To order it by surname click on the "Subject" at the top of that page, useful for browsing:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?board=146.0
(I've attached an image, complete with doodle on how to do this, just for you  ).

For searching it, press the search option in the menu (next to 'help).
Click on "Choose a board to search or search all" and untick "Check all", select the unwanted BMB board, and press "Search".

It's not perfect though, but it's better than a poke in the eye.

Trystan

[rosie99]

@rosie99 - have you got an example of one of your FreeBMD postems I could look at, please?

Birth -William Game Westron -June qtr 1878
Marriage -George Ellis-Dec qtr 1897 Lancaster
Death-Benjamin A Piper -Dec qtr 1905 Hastings

Rosie

[bibliotaphist]

Birth -William Game Westron -June qtr 1878
Marriage -George Ellis-Dec qtr 1897 Lancaster
Death-Benjamin A Piper -Dec qtr 1905 Hastings

Thank you @rosie99! That's a useful quick'n'dirty way of sharing the information. It's a shame that (see http://www2.freebmd.org.uk/postems-help.html) they're limited to 250 characters, aren't structured or searchable, aren't (easily) correctable or deletable, and there's no clear statement of licensing/ownership of the data.

And thank you @trystan for the link to the unwanted BMDs boards here on Rootschat. At least those boards are searchable as you say - although still unstructured, and I don't think I'm ready to part with my certs just yet(!) ...Edit: P.S. I've just spotted your doodle :-P

Both suggestions very much better than a poke in the eye.

BTW I haven't heard back from the BMDshare site.

Paul

[bibliotaphist]

A reply from the BMDshare site owner:

Yes the error relates to the maintenance work.  I am hoping to ... update the site this summer and will email all members once it has been completed.

My sincere apologies for the inconvenience until then, but the site can still be searched, just not added to at present.