News and Articles

November 2007

Family history fans can now search for their ancestors online across six centuries

Premier UK family history website www.findmypast.com today announced that it is adding a major new acquisition to its existing online collection – data from the National Burial Index for England and Wales. Significantly, many of these new records pre-date civil registration and will therefore enable family history enthusiasts to delve even further back into their ancestors’ pasts.

The National Burial Index is a finding aid for burials that took place in England or Wales between the years 1538 and 2005. As such, it pre-dates the centralised registration of deaths in England and Wales, which only came into effect on 1 July 1837. It will complement the Latter Day Saints’ International Genealogical Index (IGI), which contains mainly baptisms and marriages.

The burial data brings together in one easy-to-search central place the disparate records from local parishes, which members of local family history societies have been compiling since 1994, under the guidance and encouragement of the Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS). It includes records from parish registers, non-conformist registers, Roman Catholic, Jewish and other registers as well as cemetery and cremation records.

The details of over 13 million burials are contained in the database. It provides the full name, date of burial, age at death, (when given in the original source), name of the county, parish and the church or chapel where the burial took place.

Thanks to the cross-database search facility at findmypast.com, you will be able to search for your ancestor by surname across all the records on the site without needing to know where in the country they came from.

Previously some of these records were made available to the public by the Federation on CD ROM and at its own pay per view website www.familyhistoryonline.net but following a landmark agreement between the Federation and findmypast.com in September this year, burial records can now be searched online alongside findmypast.com’s existing collection of over 550 million records. The records at www.familyhistoryonline.net will be transferred to the findmypast.com website in phases over the next few months.

Elaine Collins, Commercial Director at findmypast.com said “We are very excited that we have been able to gather together so many local, quality records which pre-date 1837 and present them at findmypast.com. Now family history enthusiasts will be able to extend their family tree further back from the comfort of their own home - even if they live overseas. Who knows, they might find ancestors who were contemporaries of Henry VIII.”

Geoff Riggs, Chairman of the Federation of Family History Societies, added: “We  wanted records from our enormously successful National Burial Index to be the first set of data available under our new partnership with findmypast.com. As a result, many more researchers world-wide will now be able to benefit from the invaluable information they contain.”
The NBI data records can be accessed as part of an Explorer subscription package or with pay-per-view units.

Notes to editors

For further information, please contact:
Elaine Collins / Gillian Stevens / Philippa McCray
findmypast.com / familyhistoryonline.net / ffhs.org.uk
020 7549 0956 / 0118 947 8743 / 01455 203133
elaine.collins@findmypast.com  admin@familyhistoryonline.net  admin2@ffhs.org.uk

About findmypast.com

Findmypast.com (formerly 1837online.com) was the first company to make the complete birth, marriage and death indexes for England & Wales available online in April 2003.

Following the transcription, scanning and indexing of over two million images, the company launched the first website to allow the public easy and fast access to the complete indexes, which until then had only been available on microfiche film in specialist archives and libraries. The launch was instrumental in creating the widespread and growing interest in genealogy seen in the UK today.

Findmypast has subsequently digitised many more family history records and now offers access to over 500 million records dating as far back as 1664. This allows family historians and novice genealogists to search for their ancestors among comprehensive collections of military records, census, migration, occupation directories, and current electoral roll data, as well as the original comprehensive birth, marriage and death records.

As well as providing access to historical records, findmypast is also developing a range of online tools to help people discover and share their family history more easily, beginning with the launch of Family Tree Explorer in July 2007.

Over 1.7 million people in the UK have researched their family trees and findmypast.com has over 800,000 active registered users, revealing the mass appeal of genealogy and findmypast.com’s position as the leading family history website based in the UK.

In April 2007 findmypast’s parent company Title Research Group received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2007 in recognition of their achievement.

In November 2006 findmypast launched the ancestorsonboard.com microsite in association with The National Archives to publish outbound passenger lists for long-distance voyages departing all British ports between 1890 and 1960.

About The Federation of Family History Societies

The Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) is an educational charity formed in 1974. Over the years, membership has grown to over 200 societies throughout the world, including national, regional and one-name groups. The principal aims of the Federation are:

• to co-ordinate and assist the work of societies or other bodies interested in family history, genealogy and heraldry
• to foster mutual co-operation and regional projects in these subjects
• to represent the interests of its member societies, and family historians in general, on numerous national and regional bodies involved in such pursuits. The Federation provides an authentic, audible, and respected voice for the many thousands of individual family historians.

Membership is open to any society or body specialising in family history or an associated discipline. Full membership is open to properly constituted organisations in the British Isles and associate membership is available to overseas family history, genealogical and heraldic groups as well as to other bodies within the British Isles for whom family history is a secondary interest.

Education is a vital element within the Federation. This is achieved by member societies and FFHS committees, informally through regular meetings, fairs and other events, and also formally through seminars and national conferences. To encourage member societies to produce their own high quality journals and websites, the FFHS presents awards each year to those making the best contribution to family history.

Achievements in national and regional projects is something the FFHS takes great pride in with millions of records transcribed and indexed by local experts for the benefit of all family historians. FamilyHistoryOnline was established by the FFHS to publish online these records which include indexes or full transcriptions of source records such as baptisms, marriages and burials; monumental inscriptions; census returns for the counties of England and Wales; and other specialist subjects.

The FFHS looks forward to the challenges in the future of supporting its members, ensuring the continual preservation of, and access to, archives, and encouraging new family historians to join a family history society so as to discover and enjoy the fascinating journey into their past in the company of other enthusiasts.

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