I don't have a subscription but Ancestry.co.uk is now advertising that they have their own separate BMD indexes for 1916-2005 - only the 1837-1915 indexes come from FreeBMD. Robin -----Original Message----- From: moray-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:moray-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of jecroft@att.net Sent: March-09-10 4:01 PM To: moray@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [MORAY] William Gordon ROBERTSON born abt 1870 Ancestry only has the England & Wales data from the FreeBMD website, so that was no help. You could probably find his death on findmypast, but it can get expensive.

> I don't have a subscription but Ancestry.co.uk is now > advertising that they > have their own separate BMD indexes for 1916-2005 - only the > 1837-1915 > indexes come from FreeBMD. Is this a searchable index, or is it just images of the St Catherine's index pages? There are several sites which have the indexes as images, but I'm not aware of another fully searchable index for the period from the end of FreeBMD (which is a moveable date as more and more of the index is transcribed) and 1983. From 1984 there is a fully searchable index on various sites. Ancestry.co.uk were taken to task a year or two ago for making misleading claims like 'everything you need to research your UK ancestry' or words to that effect. Given that they don't have originals of many essential pieces of information, like BMD certificates, the Advertising Standards Authority took a dim view of that particular claim. So I would take with a pinch of salt any new claim from Ancestry unless and until I have seen for myself what they actually have. If Ancestry genuinely do have a fully searchable index to 1983, then even I might be tempted to subscribe. But my experience of using Ancestry on the FHS terminal and in libraries here and in North America is (a) that searching is a tedious and intensely frustrating business because every search produces dozens of irrelevant 'matches', and (b) that it is not a good source for Scottish research. Anne

I tried a search for the Lancashire death of Edward Arnold born 1885 and got the ususal page of confusing results. But the correct Edward (died 1954 in St Helens) was actually on the first page. The image was the correct quarter index page with the appropriate volume and page data for ordering a certificate. Ancestry also offers to obtain the certificate for you with a cost (US dollar) between $38-$85 depending on type of shipping selected. -- Jo-Ann Croft

Ancestry does have searchable indexes right up to right up to 2005 Andy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anne Burgess" <anne.burgess@btinternet.com> To: <robin_mcleod@sympatico.ca>; <moray@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:59 PM Subject: Re: [MORAY] Ancestry [Was: William Gordon ROBERTSON born abt 1870] >> I don't have a subscription but Ancestry.co.uk is now >> advertising that they >> have their own separate BMD indexes for 1916-2005 - only the >> 1837-1915 >> indexes come from FreeBMD. > > Is this a searchable index, or is it just images of the St > Catherine's index pages? There are several sites which have the > indexes as images, but I'm not aware of another fully searchable > index for the period from the end of FreeBMD (which is a > moveable date as more and more of the index is transcribed) and > 1983. From 1984 there is a fully searchable index on various > sites. > > Ancestry.co.uk were taken to task a year or two ago for making > misleading claims like 'everything you need to research your UK > ancestry' or words to that effect. Given that they don't have > originals of many essential pieces of information, like BMD > certificates, the Advertising Standards Authority took a dim > view of that particular claim. So I would take with a pinch of > salt any new claim from Ancestry unless and until I have seen > for myself what they actually have. > > If Ancestry genuinely do have a fully searchable index to 1983, > then even I might be tempted to subscribe. But my experience of > using Ancestry on the FHS terminal and in libraries here and in > North America is (a) that searching is a tedious and intensely > frustrating business because every search produces dozens of > irrelevant 'matches', and (b) that it is not a good source for > Scottish research. > > Anne > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > MORAY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message >