FreeBMD is a UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

-based charitable organisation founded in 1998, and established as charity in 2003 to create a free transcription

Transcription (linguistics)

Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...

 of the indexes to Births, Marriages and Deaths

Vital record

Vital records are records of life events kept under governmental authority, including birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates. In some jurisdictions, vital records may also include records of civil unions or domestic partnerships....

 for England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 from 1837 to 1983.

History

FreeBMD was founded in 1998 by Ben Laurie

Ben Laurie

Ben Laurie is a software engineer, protocol designer and cryptographer. He is a founding director of The Apache Software Foundation, a core team member of OpenSSL, a member of the Shmoo Group, a director of the Open Rights Group, Director of Security at The Bunker Secure Hosting, Trustee and...

, Graham Hart and Camilla Von Massenbach, with the intention of creating a searchable version of the General Register Office

General Register Office

The General Register Office for England and Wales is the section of the UK Identity and Passport Service responsible for the civil registration of births , adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outwith the UK if they involve a UK citizen...

 indexes of England and Wales. The three founders were joined in 1999 by Dave Mayall, and in 2010 by Allan Raymond. The project became a registered charity in 2003.

In 2005, FreeBMD absorbed the formerly separate, but closely allied, projects FreeCEN and FreeREG, bringing all three projects under a single trustee body, while retaining autonomous day to day management.

, FreeBMD has transcribed over 201 million distinct records, which represents the overwhelming majority of births, marriages and deaths registered in England and Wales from 1837 to 1949.

In 2010 Nick Barratt

Nick Barratt

Nicholas David Barratt is an English genealogist. He is best known as genealogical consultant for series 1 to 4 of the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are?. Barratt is also the CEO of Sticks Research Agency and personal heritage site Nations Memory Bank, and executive director of FreeBMD...

 was appointed executive director.

Activities

FreeBMD is engaged in an ongoing project to transcribe the General Register Office (GRO) of England and Wales

General Register Office

The General Register Office for England and Wales is the section of the UK Identity and Passport Service responsible for the civil registration of births , adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outwith the UK if they involve a UK citizen...

 indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths. In 1999 they secured an agreement with the GRO to publish records that were more than 100 years old and initially concentrated on transcribing the marriage indexes, with births and deaths to a lesser degree. However, in 2003 the GRO agreed an open policy to transcribe all of the data and, since that time FreeBMD has transcribed births, marriages and deaths for later years. FreeBMD uses volunteer transcribers. In 2005 it was estimated over 8000 volunteers were helping the project, transcribing from microfiches of the original register pages and also submitting individual entries.

Publications

The organisation publishes material only via its websites, which contain free searchable databases of all transcriptions to date.

Membership

The organisation's facilities are available to all without the need to become a member. Those who transcribe data for the project sign up for membership online, in order to allow access to the relevant facilities.

Awards

In 2007, FreeBMD was awarded the Prince Michael of Kent

Prince Michael of Kent

Prince Michael of Kent is a grandson of King George V and Queen Mary, making him a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. He is also the first cousin once removed of Prince Phillip. Prince Michael occasionally carries out royal duties representing the Queen at some functions in Commonwealth realms outside...

 Award by the Society of Genealogists

Society of Genealogists

The Society of Genealogists is a UK-based educational charity, founded in 1911 to "promote, encourage and foster the study, science and knowledge of genealogy". The Society's Library is the largest specialist genealogical library outside North America. Membership is open to any adult who agrees to...

.