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FreeREG logo FreeREG stands for Free REGisters.

Purpose

The Data

The Original Team

The Current Team and our management structure

Purpose.

Our objective is to provide free Internet searches of baptism, marriage, and burial records, which have been extracted from parish registers and non-conformist church records in the UK. The recording of baptisms, marriages and burials in parish registers began in England in 1538 and is separate and distinct from the civil registration process that began in 1837. (The latter is covered by our companion project FreeBMD) Our aim is to make it easier for researchers, no matter where they are in the world, to locate a specific record relating to their ancestor within a parish register.

We do not publish transcriptions. We provide an Internet based search capability to locate the existence (or not) of an event relating to a specified person in a specified County or Counties. The search may be narrowed to a specific place within the county and for a period of time. Only records that satisfies the criteria entered into the search engine will be displayed.

It is not possible to request a search that provides all of the records for one church or parish, nor to do a search for everyone whose name begins with "A", then "B" etc. Furthermore, FreeREG is not involved in the publication, in any form whatsoever, of whole or partial transcripts, or even an index to the records of a parish. For such complete transcriptions, where these exist, the researcher should contact either the appropriate local County Record Offices or the relevant Family History Society.

What is possible with FreeREG is for an individual researcher to enter an ancestor's name, specify a search for a baptism, marriage or burial, state a date range to search, state a county, (and optionally, narrow it down to one town or village), and then search the database for the match using those criteria.

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.

There are three FreeREG databases, one each for baptisms, marriages and burials. For additional explanations, descriptions and examples, of English and Welsh parish registers, and help with transcribing please refer to the following pages on the British Genealogy Website

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)


index Top of page


The Original Team

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.
index Top of page


The Current Team and our management structure

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
	 |                        |                          |
         |                        |               |---------------------|
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, Ron Freeston, Mark James, Dave Newbury, John Pingram, John Slann

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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If you experience errors while using FreeREG please report them to the Webmasters, indicating what you were doing (i.e. submitting, searching), the URL pf the page involved and the exact time (and timezone) where it occurred. If you have suggestions on improvements to FreeREG please make them to the FreeREG Executive. If you believe there to be a problem with any of the data entered into the database please contact the Corrections Coordinators. In your email please include information on the county and place of the record.

FreeREG is kindly hosted by The Bunker and supported by Roots Web, www.Ancestry.co.uk, www.british-genealogy.com and Parish Chest
Hosted by The Bunker RootsWeb, the oldest and largest FREE genealogy site ancestry.co.uk logo 120x60


© 1998-2008 The website, its layout, search engine, and database are copyright by the Trustees of FreeBMD, a charity registered in England and Wales, Number 1096940.
We make no warranty whatsoever as to the accuracy or completeness of the FreeREG data. Use of the FreeREG website is conditional upon acceptance of the Terms and Conditions

Last updated 25 January 2010 /RN/DN/DKD