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Madmeg

Madmeg Report 1 Feb 2014 01:21

Does anyone know why the major genealogy bmd sites have added no new records in recent years? Ancestry is still back at 2006, FMP similar and Free bmd even earlier. It makes researching quite difficult.

Meg

jax

jax Report 1 Feb 2014 03:07

As far as I was aware they were not planning on releasing anymore anyway

Freebmd have added quite a lot in the last couple of years and are more or less up to 1970 now and are only planning to add up until 1983 from what I can see

Researching:
Nothing much

mgnv

mgnv Report 1 Feb 2014 07:36

The FreeBMD Database was last updated on Sat 25 Jan 2014 and currently contains 235,362,957 distinct records

Three years ago the home page read:
The FreeBMD Database was last updated on Thur 27 Jan 2011 and currently contains 196,409,162 distinct records

I hardly think adding a million records every 4 weeks qualifies as adding "no new records".

HeyJudeB4Beatles

HeyJudeB4Beatles Report 1 Feb 2014 08:07

Ancestry is actually up to 2007 with death registrations (albeit not yet complete). There are lots of records being added all the time but they are more relevant to research into ancestors rather than the here and now (which by definition requires less research as most people will be aware of what's happening in their families).

And of course, there are more risks with records of living people re identity fraud etc

Jude

Researching:
Cording/Llewellyn/Hyde/Homer/Pattie/Irvine/Hunt/Mead

ErikaH

ErikaH Report 1 Feb 2014 09:24

Ancestry and FMP are, in part, governed by the laws of the land concerning the release of info.

freebmd is manned by volunteers - if you think they are dragging their heels, perhaps you could join the ranks of their transcribers, and speed things up!

DazedConfused

DazedConfused Report 1 Feb 2014 13:54

I also think that the GRO is no longer allowing the more recent records to be added to the records.

This is in part to stop fraud.

Researching:
We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars, Oscar Wilde New avatar, my dad age about 3/4 months, could have been worse, it could have been the awful nude on a rug!!

Madmeg

Madmeg Report 1 Feb 2014 19:04

I should have remembered that mgnv would have the statistics!

I was more interested in RECENT records, I had a particularly knotty problem in needing to trace a person in his 90s - before he died, and indeed he may well have died already - and I had to do it via searching for his great-grandchildren.

Fortunately, I got there with the aid of sheer luck (and a well-known social networking website), he had not died, I made contact which resulted in considerable happiness to his family - and sadly/gratefully they had 7 additional mourners at his funeral last week who re-kindled old friendships and delighted his grandsons with stories of his past that they never knew about.

Thanks for the reminders that the living need protecting - it's too easy to forget that not everyone is as careful, kind and honest as us genuine researchers.

Meg