Frequently Asked Questions about the transfer to findmypast.com

An online partnership between the Federation of Family History Societies and findmypast.com was announced in a press release on 1st September 2007. This page attempts to answer some of the questions that may concern users. Business carried on as normal on the current service until 2 March 2009 when all the data to be hosted by findmypast.com had been transferred and made available on their website.

Some 10 million records from National Burial Index became available on findmypast.com at the end of November 2007 and much more information for births/baptisms, marriages/banns and deaths, burials has been made available since then. The finishing touches are now being added to the memorial inscriptions and other data while some societies are providing 1851 census to findmypast.com.

Any remaining credit will be available to be used on the new service.

Who is findmypast.com?

Findmypast.com (formerly 1837online.com) was the first company to make the complete General Register Office (GRO) birth, marriage and death indexes for England & Wales available online in April 2003. It was part of the Title Research Group, which provided professional genealogical services for over 40 years and is now part of brightsolid (formerly Scotland Online).

Following the scanning and indexing of over two million images from the GRO, this UK company launched the first web site to allow the public easy and fast access to the complete indexes, which until then had only been available on microfiche film in specialist archives and libraries. In April 2007, findmypast's parent company Title Research Group received the prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2007 in recognition of their achievement.

Findmypast.com has subsequently digitised many more family history records and now offers access to over 500 million records with a few dating as far back as 1664. This allows family historians and novice genealogists to search for their ancestors among comprehensive collections of military records, census, migration, occupation directories, and current electoral roll data, as well as the original comprehensive birth, marriage and death records.

Why transfer the data to findmypast.com?

The Federation of Family History Societies and its services company will not be able to invest sufficient time and money in the considerable resources that would be necessary to enable FamilyHistoryOnline to continue as a viable alternative to other commercial sites.

The hosting of FamilyHistoryOnline by findmypast.com is providing greater access to this valuable information and bringing the data to a wider audience worldwide. It will also produce greater returns to the family history societies who own this data, and they will be able to use this income to support their educational, project and other work.

When did the FamilyHistoryOnline service close?

The service closed at noon (GMT) on Monday 2nd March 2009.

The FamilyHistoryOnline web site now provides a link to take you to the findmypast.com web site to access the data.

The first burial records transferred became available at the end of November 2007 and the transfer of existing data was completed by the end of February 2009. Until closure, all the data continued to be available on FamilyHistoryOnline.

Will all the data be available on findmypast.com?

We hope almost all the data will be available on findmypast.com in one form or another. However, in some cases the census indexes and transcriptions from family history societies will no longer available because findmypast.com have already made those indexes available and support them with images. Much of this society information will continue to be available in other formats, such as CD-ROM and some organisations could seek alternative ways of continuing to make it available online.

The data that will not be transferred will include:

  • Strays (records of people found out of place), particularly census strays that can now be found more easily by searching the full national sets of census indexes
  • Very small databases where the cost of the transfer will outweigh any possible financial return to societies
  • Databases where the data is in a very difficult format
  • Databases where the contributing family history society, organisation or individual does not wish to sign the new agreement with the Federation of Family History Societies.

What will it cost to use findmypast.com?

Findmypast.com offers a choice of ways of accessing the data: pay-per-view or subscription. Payment can be accepted online by credit card or by ‘BT Click&Buy’, and vouchers are available from an international network of stockists including libraries, archives, family history societies and by mail order. The costs of viewing individual records have been reviewed to bring them into line with other datasets.

What will happen to the voucher I haven't fully used?

You were able to continue using the FamilyHistoryOnline vouchers until the service ended. At that point, arrangements have been made to convert the outstanding balance on partially-used vouchers to findmypast.com credits. You were notified in advance of how to activate your credits, if your email address was correct and up-to-date and you had chosen to receive emails. You can now exchange any FamilyHistoryOnline vouchers you have not started to use for credit on findmypast.com credit. You will need to contact findmypast.com to make this happen - the vouchers cannot be redeemed directly on the findmypast web site.

You will not lose out financially from the final transfer of the service to findmypast.com They have dealt with this situation very capably in previous situations and they plan to make similar arrangements in this case.

Will support still be available?

The team that ran FamilyHistoryOnline on a day-to-day basis will continue to provide email support for anything related to the closed service for some months.

The findmypast.com support team will provide email and phone support during UK office hours for the FamilyHistoryOnline data they are hosting as they provide for their present service.