Welcome to UKBMD

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This site provides 1381 links to web sites that offer on-line transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and censuses. A wide range of other indexes and transcriptions are also available for most counties, these may include parish records, wills, monumental inscriptions etc.

There are two sets of Birth, Marriage and Death indexes in the UK; the original indexes held by the local register offices and a secondary index created by the General Register Office. The menu buttons on the left provide sets of links to web sites that contain both primary and secondary indexes. As always, you are recommended to look through the primary sources first, before looking through secondary records.

Since 1837 all births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales have had to be registered at the register office in the district where the event took place. In Scotland such registration became compulsory for all in 1855 and for Ireland it was 1864 for births & deaths and 1845 for marriages. Genealogists and Family Historians can make use of these registrations to help create their family tree, working backwards from the present day to the start of civil registration.

The original indexes to these registers are held by the local register offices and many of these indexes are now being transcribed by the local authorities in conjunction with Family History Societies, and the data placed on-line in a variety of web sites. Information about the registration districts and register office addresses can be found on the GENUKI Registration Districts in England and Wales pages.
The web sites with indexes based on the original registers can be seen when you click on the Local BMD button in the menu to the left.

Quarterly, the original indexes were re-transcribed and then re-indexed by the central government and these indexes have been made available as the GRO indexes, many of which are available for viewing at web sites listed under the National button. (e.g. FreeBMD)
However, the simple act of making this secondary GRO copy has introduced many errors and omissions in the national indexes - so the recommendation is to always look for an original data first, i.e. the local indexes.

An excellent discussion and further explanation of the benefits of using the original indexes instead of the secondary GRO indexes can be found in the comprehensive article by Tony Foster.

Prior to 1837 parish registers need to be consulted to look for baptism, marriage and burial records. Many web sites have on-line transcribed parish register data and these can be found by selecting a county name from the list in the menu and then clicking on the County button.

Census records are the other main source of information for family historians. Many of the censuses have now been made available on-line, and these can be found by clicking on the Census button.

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What's on this site ?

From the menu buttons on the left you can access:

• Local BMD - these are the indexes created from the original registration entries held by the local registrars. Civil registration from its start is covered. More and more counties are putting their indexes on-line, so it is advisable to start looking here first. The Local BMD sites using the UKBMD software can be searched in one go, using the multi-region UKBMD-Search.
• GRO BMD - these indexes are the General Register Office's secondary indexes.
• County - To list all the known BMD web sites for a particular county (or country), use this option, remembering to first select a county from the drop-down list. Sites listed cover parish register, burial records and other transcripts. Note: the counties refer to the pre-1974 UK counties. For information about the county boundary changes see the Local Government Changes page within GENUKI.
• National - The GRO hold indexes centrally, based on copies of the original local register entries.
• Census - Sites offering on-line transcriptions for various UK censuses, throughout the years.
• ONS - One Name Study sites that have BMD indexes, Census and/or Parish Records On-line.
• OPC - Online Parish Clerks. A growing useful resource for help.
• Events - A list of Family History Fairs and Events where UKBMD will be represented.
• News - A selection of News articles from the World of Genealogy. Updated daily.
• FAQ - Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
• Statistics - Counts and updates dates for the Local BMD sites. Updated daily.
• Contact - information about how to contact us and provide feedback - especially if you can provide information about sites not listed here.
• About Us - brief history about who we are and how we came to be here.
• Register - subscribe to the UKBMD Mailing list for BMD updates announcements.
• Misc - Miscellaneous general interest items to help genealogists in their research.

What's not on this site ?

• Every relevant link from within GENUKI. The GENUKI site is the premiere site for research for UK genealogy. As such there are hundreds of pages within this site that either list transcribed data, or tell you where to find it. So, rather than fill this site up with many links all pointing to the one site, I believe that it's sufficient to point you to the main entrance and let you look for yourselves using its menus and comprehensive search facilities.