Findmypast

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findmypast
Type Limited Company
Industry genealogy, online publishing
Founded 2003
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Key people Annelies van den Belt (CEO)
Owner(s) DC Thomson Family History
Employees 100
Website http://www.findmypast.co.uk

Findmypast is a privately held UK-based online genealogy service owned by British company DC Thomson Family History.[1][2][3] It was the first company in the world to make the complete birth, marriage and death indexes for England & Wales available online and for this was awarded the Queen's Award for Innovation in 2007.[4] In October 2011, findmypast used the new UK product placement legislation opportunities by sponsoring a genealogy TV series. The UKTV series was named Find My Past and uses the findmypast genealogical resources to discover people's roots.[1]

History

Title Research Group

Findmypast was originally formed in 1965 as a small group of professional and probate genealogists called 'Title Research'.[5] In 2001 they started an online project, called 1837online, which aimed to publish copies of the birth, marriage and death register pages of the General Register Office (GRO). Another online project, FreeBMD, had already been busy since 1999, gradually transcribing the indexes using volunteers and publishing searchable indexes freely on the internet.[6]

1837online

In April 2003 www.1837online.com went live online.[6] This was a pay-per-view service allowing access to images of the pages of the original GRO registers. Initially there was no index of individual entries for the period before 1984, but subsequent years had already been electronically recorded by the GRO and were fully searchable.[6] Gradually the UK Censuses, passenger lists and other databases were added to the site, the first being an index of the 1861 England and Wales Census in 2005.[6]

Findmypast

1837online renamed itself findmypast because of its scope had spread beyond the GRO registers.[5] The Queen's Award for Innovation was awarded to Title Research Group Ltd in 2007, for their provision of public, online access to the birth, marriage and death records.[4]

In 2008 findmypast(now part of brightsolid) gained a license to publish the 1911 England and Wales Census, which was added to the site in May.[5] In 2011 findmypast became sponsors of the Society of Genealogists in their centenary year and agreed a reciprocal arrangement where each would give access to one another's online databases.[7]

Findmypast International

An Australia & New Zealand sister site came online in May 2010[8] with findmypast.ie launched in the Republic of Ireland a year later,[2] followed by findmypast.com in the United States in July 2012[9]

Findmypast began sponsoring the UK television channel 'Yesterday' in 2010. A new TV series starting in October 2011, funded by findmypast.co.uk, was believed to be the first example of a product placement and advertiser funded programming deal for a factual TV series in the country.[10]

Features

There are currently a wide variety of census, directory and historical record information available from across the English speaking world.[11] Findmypast has over 1.6 billion searchable records worldwide but, though it is possible to search their indexes for free, a payment or subscription is required to access the full data.[12]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bradshaw, T. Find My Past set for full product TV placement The Financial Times, October 14, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Who do you think you are?, Independent.ie, October 16, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
  3. ↑ Friends Reunited to be restructured, Theguardian.com, October 2, 2013. Retrieved 2013-09-12.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Businesslink.gov.uk The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation - Winners List. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Findmypast.co.uk, Company History timeline. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Christian, P., 'The Genealogists Internet', The National Archives, 3rd Edition (2005), pp 50-53. ISBN 1 9033 65 83.
  7. ↑ Society of Genealogists website Free access to Findmypast.co.uk at the Society of Genealogists’ Library – now including 1911 census January 5, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
  8. ↑ http://www.findmypast.com.au/content/fmpau_about_us
  9. ↑ http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/2012/07/24/FindmypastcomOfficiallyLaunchesIntoUSGenealogyMarket.aspx
  10. ↑ O'Reilly, L., UKTV and Find My Past in product placement first Marketing Week, June 7, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-01.
  11. ↑ Findmypast.co.uk, Family history records on findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  12. ↑ Findmypast.co.uk, Site Tour. Retrieved 2013-09-02.

External links

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