It seems there are two major ’takeaways’ for all the discussion of UK BMD entries: 1. Resolving the problem of multiple males and multiple females is what the recent push by Cliff Kimball (see his Forum post on 22 March 2017) for the Guild Marriage Index (GMI) and, specifically, the concept of Inferred Marriage Partners (IMPs). If many of us contributed our own entries to both, there would be a lot of ambiguity-resolving information in the GMI for everyone’s benefit. I just sent in about 1,500 Shenton IMPs, along with another 500 or so regular GMI entries. Contribute your records and build up the database for all of us ! 2. As several folks have pointed out, there are numerous glitches in the FreeBMD indexes (most obviously, the 3-name or 5-name situations), although they are pretty solid considering the enormous volume of entries. FreeBMD does have a procedure for submitting corrections, which again would help out many people. The submittal process is rather strict and laborious, but they have accepted several of my corrections, Given the prodigious amount of volunteer effort which has gone into building the FreeBMD, it’s only righteous for some of us who are heavy users to take a bit of time to help fix the glitches. Scott Shenton (GOONS 5292) Indialantic, Florida, USA Shenton one name study http://shenton.tribalpages.com > On Apr 28, 2017, at 12:31 AM, John Hanson <john.hanson@one-name.org> wrote: > > Marie > Family Finder is simply what FMP call their matching facility. It works > exactly the same way as Freebmd by looking for all the people on the same > page. Obviously it works best post 1912 when the spouses surname is included > in the indexes. > > As you say if you look at the entry on FreeBMD and Ancestry then there are > two women named rather than the one on findmypast. However there is one one > male name whereas there should be two and that is when the alarm bells > should start ringing. > > Whichever site you use the number of names produced should always be in > pairs as it takes two people to make a marriage. So it could be two or four. > However if it is earlier than 1851 then it could also be six or eight as the > early forms at the GRO had four entries to a page. As you say the only way > to be sure (prior to 1912) is to find the original marriage entry. Now > whilst parish records will give you most it will not give you all of them. > There is one other useful source and that is the LocalBMD projects - you can > check these out on the UKBMD website at http://ukbmd.org.uk/local_bmd - > certainly for Lancashire and Cheshire I know exactly who married who and > where. > > So back to Thomas Fowler in 1888. > FREEBMD has for Ref 2b 1066 in 1888 Alverstoke > Emma CHURCHER - Thomas FOWLER and Minnie FRANCIS > > The name missing from the FMP indexes is Emma Churcher and a search of their > indexes for her shows that they have transcribed the reference as 2B 1056 > not 2B 1066 as FreeBMD. Now there are a number of trees on ancestry and they > show that she married Thomas FOWLER. > > So the question has to be what happened to Minnie FRANCIS? She has no > matches in Ancestry trees to help but if you search findmypast for her there > are again two males and one female. This time the male names are Thomas > FOWLER and Walter Paine. Now Walter PAINE on FreeBMD has a reference of 2b > 1056 not 2b 1066. I have checked the image on FreeBMD and it should be page > 1066 so I have submitted the correction. > > So it looks like the correct entry for FREEBMD should have four names and > from the ancestry result we can say that > Thomas FOWLER married Emma CHURCHER and Walter PAINE married Minnie FRANCIS > However the only way to be certain is to get the certificates. > > So back to basics - if FreeBMD returns an odd number of entries then you > need to investigate further > > Regards > John Hanson, researcher, the Halsted Trust, > http://www.halstedresearch.org.uk > New family history conference in 2018 http://www.secretlives.org.uk