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FreeREG stands for Free REGisters.

As a result of reading this you have more specific questions. Some of these will have been addressed already in our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

FreeREG is a part of the FreeUKGEN Project and a companion to FreeBMD (which is a database of the GRO birth, marriage and death indexes from 1837} and FreeCEN (which is a database of census information).

Important Note: FreeREG is a new project. We currently have only a few million records in the database, so you should not expect to find all your ancestors in the database yet.

To make FreeREG an effective tool we are in URGENT need of volunteers willing to undertake the transcription of registers or make available transcriptions that they have already completed. (See How to Volunteer)

The Data.

Baptisms	The data contained in the baptism database comprises: County Place Church Register entry number (if applicable) Date of birth (in some registers after about 1860) Date of baptism Forename Sex Father's forename(s) Mother's forename(s) Father's surname (sometimes not available if an illegitimate. Then see Mother's surname) Mother's surname (if shown) Abode (in registers 1813 onwards) Occupation of father (in registers 1813 onwards) Notes (any extra notes in the register)
Marriages	The data contained in the marriages database comprises: County Place Church Register entry number (if applicable) Date of marriage Groom forename Groom surname Groom age (if shown) Groom's parish (if stated). Note: it is only usually stated if the parish of residence of the groom is different from the parish where the marriage took place. This is not necessarily the place of birth. Groom's condition (e.g. bachelor or widower - if blank assume bachelor, but check original) Groom's occupation (if stated) Groom's abode (1837 onwards only. May be omitted in the database) Bride Forename Bride Surname Bride age (if stated) Bride's parish If stated. Note: it is only usually stated if the parish of residence of the bride is different from the parish where the marriage took place. This is not necessarily the place of birth. Bride's condition (e.g. spinster or widow - if blank assume spinster, but check original) Bride's occupation (if stated) Bride's abode (1837 onwards only. May be omitted in the database) Groom's Father's name (post 1837 marriages, but occasionally earlier, may be omitted from the database record) Groom's Father's occupation (post 1837 marriages, but occasionally earlier, may be omitted from the database record) Bride's Father's first name Bride's Father's surname Bride's Father's occupation Witness names (usually only 1754 and later, and may be omitted from the database record if the data was transcribed before the start of the FreeREG Project) Notes (any side notes in the register) For items not included in the database, we suggest looking at a copy of the original marriage registers on microfiche/film. That is always advisable anyway!
Burials	The data contained in the burials database comprises: County Place Church Register entry number (if applicable) Date of burial Forename Relationship (e.g. wife of, son of, daughter of, widow of [name] ) Surname Age at death (if stated) Abode (if stated) Notes (other notes may include additional information such as occupation, if stated)

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The Users of FreeREG owe a debt of gratitude to the originators of the project, namely Rod Neep, Ben Laurie, David Mayall, Camilla Gemmingen von Massenbach, Brian Randell and Phil Stringer.
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As with any large project the many activities being undertaken by a variety of volunteers requires an organizational structure to keep all work carefully focused on the objectives of FreeREG.

			FreeReg Executive
                                  |
         |------------------------|--------------------------|
         |                        |                          |
Country coordinators    Web Page coordinator       Database coordinator
	 |                        |                          |
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Syndicate coordinators     Web Page Editors      Data Manager     Database Developers
         |                        |		   |	    				
  Data Providers       Mailing List Admin.    Data Editors

Some of these positions are still vacant.

FreeREG Executive	Responsible to the FreeBMD Society for the management of FreeREG	Eric Dickens, Mark James, John Pingram
Country coordinators	Liaise with FreeREG Executive, syndicate coordinators and web page editors	England Wales Scotland
Syndicate coordinators	Liaison with Country coordinators, Data editors and volunteers to enter register data for the county and with web page editors to keep county pages up to date. Also see: Coordinators Responsibilities Page for additional information.
Data Providers	Volunteers who transcribe registers and submit data to the County coordinators or to the Data Editors)	Anyone  and everyone - the most important job. If you are interested contact our Volunteer Coordinator.
Web Pages coordinator	Oversees general structure and presentation of web pages and liaison with the web page editors.	Webmasters
Web Page Editors	Maintains a group of specific webpages such as the County Pages, FAQ pages, etc.	Web Editors
Discussion Forum and Mailing List Administrators	Moderates discussion fora and managing mailing lists,dealing with problem subscribe and unsubscribe messages, handling error messages and rejected messages.	Main FreeREG Discussion Forum and the general FREEREG mailing list List Administration
Database Coordinator	Overseeing the database aspect of the project.	Database Coordination
Data Manager	Overseeing final data entry into the database	Vacant
Database Developers	Database programmers	More needed!
Data Editors	Convert data from non-standard format into our format as csv files. See Data Editors	More needed!

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