Help

Search

FreeBMD covers records for England and Wales only, not Scotland, Ireland or overseas.

Narrow your search by choosing start and end dates, single first name and/or surname, and limiting searches to one county or one district.

First name & Surname

If you don’t know the full first name or you are unsure about the exact spelling of a name, use a wildcard character '*' (an asterisk or star symbol) or '?' to search for variations. '*' matches zero or more characters, while each '?' matches a single character (e.g., 'Ste*n' finds Stephen, Steven and Stefan, etc.; 'Part??ton' matches Partinton but not Partington).

You can search for the second given name by preceding the name with '>'. So if you have a middle name which was commmonly used in your family you can use this type of search to find possible relatives, for example Surname 'Carpenter', Given Name '>Joshua'. Such a search matches from the start of the second given name (e.g. it would match 'David Joshua' but not 'David Peter Joshua'). To search for a name anywhere from the second given name onwards use a double '>>', e.g. Given Name '>>Joshua' which would find both the above examples. If you want to search for a specific given name and don't mind where it occurs, you can precede the name by '+'.

If you know precisely how a particular name was entered in the database, you can search for an exact match by putting '#' at the start of your search string, for example '#_A*LLISH' (try it!). Conversely, if you want to broaden a surname search you can check the ‘Phonetic search surnames’ box to match similar-sounding surnames.

Date Range

Limit the search by start or end date. The search defaults to a range from March 1837 to December 1999, but you can adjust it for more focused results. The data is not complete after 1992. Each year was divided into quarters until 1984:

• Mar (January, February, March)
• Jun (April, May, June)
• Sep (July, August, September)
• Dec (October, November, December)

Record Types

Choose Birth, Marriage, or Death records based on what you are searching for.

• Birth Records: from September 1911, mother's maiden name is included.
• Marriage Records: from 1912, the spouse's surname is shown.
• Death Records: age at death is included from 1866, and date of birth is included from June 1969.

Counties and Districts

If you know the district or county, you can narrow the search, but note that larger districts may contain multiple locations.

Volume and Page

Volume and Page are optional fields. Each record includes a Volume and Page number to help you locate the record in the General Register Office index.

For more detailed information and other advanced search tips see the Further Help below.