Federation Of Family History Societies

Births, marriages and deaths indexes free online at The National Archives

The National Archives announced recently that it had agreed free onsite internet access to the births, marriages and deaths indexes through findmypast.co.uk, the UK family history website. We reported this briefly on 16 January in the Latest News section of the website.

Users at The National Archives in Kew will have free access to the digitised indexes, for an initial one-year trial period. This facility is also available on the first floor of the Family Records Centre in Myddleton Street, until it closes at 5pm on 15 March 2008. Please note that it is only at these two sites where free access is available.

Last July, the General Register Office announced that its own planned online service (MAGPIE) would not be ready before the paper indexes were to be withdrawn from public use. Provision of this new facility is the direct result of the FFHS's approach to TNA immediately following that announcement

We successfully made the case that having to decipher some of the microfiche pages of the indexes presented difficulties, especially to those with any visual impairment. We proposed that this be remedied by TNA providing instead a free service to one of the websites allowing online access to the indexes; this enables the contents of the index pages to be magnified to a more legible size.

This is yet another example of the FFHS working behind the scenes to preserve and enhance your access to research material.