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Above: A screenshot of TheGenealogist.co.uk |
Search Online Census, Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Record Indexes and Directories with TheGenealogist. The website has been voted as the best BMD site and has a high degree of accuracy, and customers say that the customer service is outstanding.
This website is the first place I come to when looking for an ancestor in the census or BMDs. They have complete BMD records for 1837 onwards, and complete census transcripts and indexes.
When registering with The Genealogist, you have two types of subscriptions to choose from:
- All-inclusive credit-based subscriptions, which means you pay for either 3 months or 12 months, and the credits that you are given are spent on searches and viewing full records;
- All-inclusive credit-free subscriptions, which means you have unlimited searching/viewing credits on all records;
- and Pay-as-you-Go, which means you only pay for the records you need.
Signing In
To sign in, click on 'My Subscriptions', enter your e-mail and password, and click the "Sign In" button. If you have not yet registered, you can do so by clicking the "Register" button and purchasing a subscription.
Once signed in, you can see your current subscription under the tab "Research View", highlighted in the image above.
Research View
The master search lets you search BMDs 1984 onwards and Census Transcripts, and gives you a list of results in each BMD record and census year, which you can then choose to narrow down your search. |
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Search census indexes and transcripts by selecting the year then county - clicking search will take you to the Search page. |
Choose the records to search using these drop down boxes, then click search to begin you search. |
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Surname maps are useful to see where people with your surname are lising at the time of a particular census year. Useful to locate more of your ancestor's relatives. |
Research Log, Community View, & My Account
Apart from the Research View, there are five other tabs - these include Research Log, Community View, and My Account.
My Account - Here you can edit your account settings, including editing your details, terms and conditions, credit information, subscription history, and contacting The Genealogist staff.
Community View - Members with all-inclusive subscriptions have access to the Forum, Subscriber Articles (where members post their family history stories and can win prizes for them), the latest news, and more.
Research Log - When searching for a family, you have the option to save some of the records you have found during your search, and these records are saved in your Research Log for you to view or compare later (right).
Searching for a Record in the Census
Let's search for someone in the census - we will use John Smith's family from my research log, and I'll show you how I found this family.
I began by selecting the Shropshire 1851 Census Transcript to search.
As I knew the forname and surname of the person I was looking for, I typed "Elizabeth" and "Smith" into the correct boxes - however, I wasn't too sure about the age, but knew she was in her twenties, so typed in 25 (there is a 5 year gap each side, so I am really searching for anyone between the ages of 20 and 30.) I also knew that she was married to a Miner, so I clicked on "Advanced Search" and chose Wife as the Relation to Head. I then clicked 'Search'.
There were 11 people in my search results - but I was suprised (and glad) that I found the person I was looking for first time:
I wanted to know about the whole family, so I clicked on the family icon at the end of the search result to view the family, and I found the family living at 35 Marsh, Clun, which were John Smith and his wife, Elizabeth, and their 1 year old daughter, Mary Ann. I saved this family to my research log, which you have seen above.
There is much more to do on TheGenealogist than search the census - you could look through the landowner records, or search for your own birth record in the BMD indexes. The Genealogist is a good way to research your family history, and they are constantly working to add new features for the benefit of their members.
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