How to use this Service

(for fuller information, click on the links to the corresponding details sections that follow these steps)

Charge for viewing an entry

The charge to view details for an entry found by the free search is graded to reflect the amount of information it can contain and whether it's been checked, i.e. how useful it may be:

  • index entries cost 6p
    (except 'surname only' indexes which cost 4p);
  • transcriptions cost 8p
    (except census entries from 1851 onwards and marriage entries from July 1837 onwards
    which both cost 10p.).
  • any records not yet checked by the database provider cost less, normally 1p in each case
    (i.e. 3p, 5p, 7p or 9p).
  • images of a church or any similar location cost 50p
  • images of a gravestone or other rarely photographed family item cost 2 pounds
    (other images e.g. document pages may be charged at an intermediate rate.)

The surplus revenue after costs are met is paid to the family history society or organisation who provided the entry you view. This helps repay the investment they made, in time and effort, compiling the data, and helps them fund further projects.

Entries from the 'LDS' 1881 census are free - this was a joint project between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the then Public Record Office and the Federation of Family History Societies. An alternative 1881 Census for Sussex is also available.

Sign on as a new user

If you're asked to choose another User Name to sign in, try again using your email address, alternatively try using both forename and surname, or adding initials or maybe a number. It makes no difference whether you use capitals or small letters for your User Name or your Password.

Free search of our name index

Entering surname variants and forename synonyms will help find common variations, pet names and abbreviations e.g. Thos for Thomas.

Entering '-unknown-' as a forename will find surnames where no forename has been given. Leaving the forename field blank will find all names that match the surname (provided that the surname is not too common) including those with an unknown forename. Entering more than one forename means that all have to be matched.

You can narrow your search to a single county or country or Australian state, or certain towns falling in more than one county. Useful combinations are:

  • Birmingham - search Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.
  • Bristol - search Gloucestershire and Somerset.
  • Hampshire - search Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
  • London - London, Middlesex, Essex, Kent and Surrey.
  • Wales - search counties in Wales.
  • Yorkshire - search all three Ridings plus the City of York and Isle of Ainsty.

Normally only the people principally involved in an event will be shown, e.g. the child baptised or the bride and groom in a marriage. However, by selecting 'Est. birth' you can also search entries, normally from the census, where the age and birthplace allows an index entry to be made for the estimated birth of someone. Selecting 'Other family' will also search parents of baptised children and other family members, where available.

You can often speed up your search by specifying a particular group of records, e.g. the census. This can be of particular benefit with common names.

View the results of your free search

If too many results are found, try entering further information in the search form to reduce the number. If no results are shown, you could broaden your search by using wild-cards or variants, or a wider range of years. If you're still unsuccessful, remember the service continues to expand so you could try again at a later date.

The results show the names found, the database and county in which they appear, the number of entries found with those names in that database and the range of years covered. You can use one or more forenames in your search and any entries found must match all forenames, but in any order. Taking an entry for Mary Ann as an example, both Mary Ann and Ann Mary would be matches, but just Mary would not be a match.

Before spending money to view the details of the entry, you can click on the database name to view its description page. This shows the type of detail provided, and may show the places and year ranges currently included. There may also be a link to the web-site of the society providing it, so you can find out whether the information can be bought in some other form (booklet, microfiche or CD-ROM).

A 'List Places' option may appear where it might be useful. This allows you to list the places, within a county, where the entries were found. There is a charge of 1p for each entry for this service, subject to both a minimum and a maximum charge. This will be very useful when dealing with frequent names, e.g. Smith, Brown, Jones and Williams.

Make a payment

The only stage at which you can make a payment is when you click on the charge to view the details of entries, or a list of related places, found by a free search of the name index. You can use a pre-payment voucher or a credit or debit card, both of which allow you 6 months in which to use the amount of credit it buys you.

Prepayment vouchers can be bought in £5 and £10 denominations from a number of sources including GENfair™. When you enter the number on the reverse of the voucher you can ignore leading zeroes and it doesn't matter if you use capitals for the password (nine letters). You then have the amount of the voucher's face value to your credit.

Credit and debit card payments of £5, £10, £20 or £50 can be made directly using any of the following cards and currencies:

  • MasterCard credit card
  • Visa credit card
  • JCB debit card
  • Solo debit card
  • Maestro debit card
  • Visa Delta debit card
  • United Kingdom Pounds
  • Australian Dollars
  • Canadian Dollars
  • Euros
  • New Zealand Dollars
  • United States Dollars

If you don't normally use one of the currencies, select UK Pounds and your card company will deal with the foreign exchange conversion.

Your card details are entered using the WorldPay secure server (respected worldwide). They are specially encrypted and your card number is never stored, or even seen, by us. When your payment is accepted, you will be credited with a 'virtual' voucher enabling you to immediately view the results you requested. Shortly afterwards you'll also receive an e-mail from WorldPay confirming the details of the transaction for your records.

Fuller information for a result

The exact information in any database depends on the Family History Society providing it. Details are displayed in bold text surrounded by any explanation and if there are no details for a particular field this is shown by a dash character '–'. Each database record (if there's more than one) forms a separate numbered paragraph and these can continue onto another page. If the database links a record to other records, allowing you to view them as a group, this is indicated. Similarly, if the record links to one or more images then this is also indicated and the anticipated charge shown. Text format is normally preferred if you want to print the entry information.

Using the view as table link will reformat the information onto one page with a record in each row. Each field will be in a separate column headed by the field name and a group column will appear at the end if this facility can be used.

If you need an explanation of any codes shown in the information, click on the database name at the top of the page or the links at the bottom of the page to refer to the database description page.

View a group of similar results

These results show a group of database records, such as all those within the same household or schedule number for a census. Since these are often part of the same family group, or otherwise related, you have the option of paying to see all the records in the group (without having to pay a second time for the one you first looked at).

View one or more images

A single image will be shown within the page, while a group of images will be shown as a sequence of smaller images. How much you are charged depends whether the price is set per group of images or, more rarely, for a each image. By clicking on the appropriate link you can view the image on its own, or by using Adobe® Reader® which provides the greatest flexibility, particularly for printing.

Print the fuller information

If the result provides transcribed details rather than basic index information, it may be too wide in table form to print on A4 paper, and it is then best to view the page in text format. If you are using Internet Explorer, you may need to adjust both the left hand and right hand margins to 10mm each (File/Page setup). You can then check (File/Print Preview) that it will fit correctly on your page. Alternatively, with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, you may be able to reduce the magnification used by your printer to less than 100% (File/Print/Properties), though the output may not be quite as legible.

Search results you recently paid to view

This page reports all the searches where you have paid to view the results during the past 30 days. Any list of places, group results or images paid for, identified by the group number or image reference, can also be repeated. You can view again, free of charge, the results of any search you paid during last 28 days but earlier ones will be charged again at the normal amount shown.

Payments made and amounts left

This page shows all payments you've made over the past few months, vouchers that haven't expired and those recently expired. The 'Type' column (i.e. of voucher) shows credit or debit card payments as 'Virtual'. Payments are shown in chronological order. If you have more than one voucher with an amount left to your credit, the system will deduct charges from the voucher with the earliest expiry date.

Change your personal details

This page enables you to change the name by which you like to be addressed, your password, hint phrase, or your email address. If you change your country of residence, please tell us using the form on this page, so that we can comply with EU legislation covering our liability to pay Value Added Tax.

Sign out when you finish

This is specially important if you are using a computer that someone else can subsequently use, at a library or other public place. Failure to sign out can allow another person to continue searching