AAArgggh BMD index

[spoonybroony]

I don't think I am ever going to be off here now!
I am looking for my great grandfathers birth certificate, working on ancestry (it's free in my library! - result!) I found a listing which took me to the free bmd index, however when I view the page his name is not there. Its states in ancestry that its 10a, page 490 for apr/may/jun 1884 however the page that comes up is 190 Forsters are listed but not him, is this an error somewhere?

[LesleyB]

Hi

Can you give us his name and reg district so that we can have a look at the problem?

Is this him on Free BMD? It is March quarter though....

Births Mar 1884
Forster William Robinson Chester le S. 10a 490

Best wishes
Lesley

[garibaldired]

Births Mar 1884
Forster William Robinson Chester le S. 10a 490

If this is him, if you click on the pair of glasses at the right side, you'll see him there on the original.

Best wishes,
Meg

PS I should have said this applies to the FreeBMD site: http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

[trish1]

Hi there - a quick note - if you are using ancestry to check BMD indexes that is fine - but don't ever order a certificate through ancestry - you will pay at least double the price. You can buy certificates direct from the England/Wales GRO. http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certi ... efault.asp

The page number 190 that comes up in ancestry is the page in the INDEX, the page number 490 is the page number in the register book held by GRO that will contain the actual certificate

If Lesley has the correct person, it seems the ancestry version of the index has the wrong quarter. Looking at the ancestry search results for William Forster 1884 - there are no Jan-Mar records, so the complete quarter may be wrongly indexed. You can manually find the right page via searching on the RHS of the ancestry page. Choose 1884, Jan-Mar, F - then a manual page search will find William Robinson Forster on ancestry page 6 of 10, index page 187.

If you wanted to buy the certificate through GRO, you don't need the image, but you do need the correct quarter, volume and page numbers.

Trish

[LesleyB]

Hi Trish

I have no idea if William is the correct record - I just searched given the small amount of info we were given i.e. a male Forster, born in 1884 and vol 10a, page 490. I've maybe located the wrong candidate alltogether!!

Best wishes
Lesley

[trish1]

Hi Lesley
You do seem to have proven that ancestry has the Mar qtr 1884 (or part thereof) wrongly indexed - apart from some horror transcriptions, they also have some bad indexes - thus said - for England/Wales research they are good value for money. For purchasing certificates - they are terrible value for money.

FreeBDM, however, is amazingly accurate. They have advanced 100 years since I first started researching in 2003. I didn't do any transcriptions for them - but I always submit corrections when I find an error. They correct same - usually within a month. The reality is that the GRO index itself is riddled with errors - and FreeBDM and ancestry are simply copies of that index.

Trish

[AndrewP]

Hi Trish,

Looks like this problem is unique to Ancestry's index. It is fine on FindMyPast; and fine on FreeBMD, as noted above.

All the best,

AndrewP

[spoonybroony]

Apologies and thank you's !!!

Apologies for not telling you his name at the start, he was indeed William Robinson Forster, and chester le street is definately the correct area.
Thank you everyone for your help. Had a look on Freebmd and saw his name there, that is definately not the record I saw when I went through Ancestry. Thought it was too good to be true when I found out we could access ancestry free at the library, I will be a lot more vigilant with the information they give in the future.

thank you all x

Lorraine