RootsChat.Com

Can't see it mentioned yet, but FindMyPast have started free access to certain records in the lead up to 11th November.

Currently -
-All civil birth, marriage and death records
-All First World War military records and medal rolls and honours
-The 1911 Census of England and Wales


Not entirely clear what, but the email suggests there may be free access on multiple weekends, not just this one -
"More wartime resources will be free to access every weekend in the lead-up to Remembrance Day"

Not sure if this is new, or if I've just missed it before, but the GRO online search results page is now showing an option of paying £2.50 for a digital image "available to view once payment is complete".

Is this the long-awaited and much anticipated cheap and fast service as an alternative to paper/digital certificates?

I've come across something a bit odd and wondered if anyone else had found something similar or knows how it might have happened.

A relative died in 2000. In 2007 I made a note of their death registration details while I was at the Family Records Centre. The details I collected include the given name of the person, which was exactly as my side of the family had always known them.

I hadn't found them on the 1939 Register, nor did I have marriage or birth registration records. However, I recently found their marriage and birth index entries but on these records the person has three given names, none of which are the name they were known by. In other words the name we knew them by was a nickname. (e.g. We knew them as 'Fred Smith' but they were actually 'Thomas Richard Henry Smith'.)

I checked the new GRO death index and it doesn't have an entry under the nickname, but does have one under the newly discovered three given names with all other details identical to those i already had.

I decided to check FindMyPast thinking I might have "had a moment" back in 2007 and written down the nickname by habit, rather than what the index showed. Curiously FindMyPast have two death registration records, both identical except for the given names.

I understood the new GRO index for 1984 onwards was using the already digital data, in which case why does it not include a record under the nickname? There is also nothing in the new index to indicate the entry has been amended or is linked to another entry.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to how this happened in the first place. I suppose it is possible the death was originally registered under the nickname and subsequently amended, but if so I'd have thought there would be some indication in the entries to show this was the case.

Is it possible to register an 'also known as' name, and could/should this generate a second index entry?

The thing to note is the new GRO index might not contain exactly the same data as the previous digital indexes post-1984.

Has anyone ever managed to extract the 'date changed' data for marriages in an old Brother's Keeper database (version 5.2G) please?

BK5 displays the last date of change for individuals and for marriages on the edit screen - which means it must store this information - but I cannot find a way of extracting the last date of change for all marriages. (For individuals it is possible to do a numerical report including field 40 'date changed', but the equivalent field for marriages doesn't seem to be available).

I've also had a look at the current version, which also allows the 'change date' to be included in a GEDCOM export, but again this seems only to work for individuals, not for marriages.

I'd be interested if anyone else has ever had a need to do this and found a solution. (I've done a quick search on the forum and on google with little joy - possibly too obscure, or too ancient 

Many thanks.

Hi, Has anyone had any luck with the FindMyPast Suffragette Collection?

I have found someone I'm interested in but clicking on the image view button takes me to a never ending green 'hampster wheel' with no image appearing. Clicking on 'download' on the viewer page does however download the relevant page.

What I'm stumped on is the transcription gives details such as full name, date, place & county of birth, and occupation - but none of these are visible on the downloaded image.

The downloaded image has name, court(?), date (of hearing?) and then a number which in my heroine's case is 220.196/16. This number is presumably an index reference to where the other details such as birth date/place and occupation can be found, but what I don't see is how. 

The record I'm looking at is for Helen Margaret SPANTON b.1877

Has anyone managed to get more information about anyone they've found?