Let me tell you about a new website I’ve been playing with recently. It’s called ‘Find-A-Record‘. And that’s not to be confused with ‘Find-A-Grave‘ as they are two entriely different sites. Both useful for genealogy, but both with different purposes.
So what is Find-A-Record? Well essentially is is a website that enables you to search for genealogical records by a town, region, or geographic area, and it tells you what records exist in the place and time period that your ancestors lived.
It looks at the records on FamilySearch, Ancestry, findmypast, WorldVitalRecords and other websites that have records that apply to that geographic area.
the search screen
(click for a larger image)
With a neat and simple homepage, you simply need to look for the SEARCH button, which then takes you to another screen. Here you simply type in a place, narrow it down by year span, choose if you want to include only free records or paid record (or both), then tick which records you wish to look for (births, marriages, deaths, census, military, miscellaneous), and hit the SEARCH button.
search screen showing results
(click for a larger image)
While you’ll never find E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G online. That will simply never happen. The records on FamilySearch, Ancestry, findmypast and WorldVitalRecords are “worldwide”, so you’re more than likely to some records for even the smallest town or village when looking for places in England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand and United States (those are the ones I’ve tried anyway).
To see how it works checkout the video below, then try it out for yourself.
Just don’t expect it to take you directly to the actual record, as it won’t. But what it will do is take you to the record set.
The Find-A-Record site is only a few months old, so is still being developed, so it shall be interesting to watch it develop further.
If you try it and love it, be sure to keep up with all the Find-A-Record news via:
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I object to sites that offer a free trial and then you have to put credit card details in just to get the trial
what if it doesnt find anything
there is no where where you can then take your credit card details out
its so annoying
if something is free it shold be free and not subject to getting your card
Chrissy, Find-A-Record is free to search. There’s no doubt about that. One of the features it offers is that it allows you to choose if you wish to search through just FREE records (such as those on FamilySearch and elsewhere), or do you wish to include the paid sites too. If you choose the PAID option, then want to click on a result for more details, yes, you’ll need a subscription.
And if you do take up a trial subscription, simply contact that company prior to end of the trial period ending, or else your c/c will be charged. That’s they way they work, and they don’t try to hide it.
An alternate way of dealing with putting your c/c online is either using a Debit card which only has a small amount available on it. Or by buying a pre-paid c/c which is available from many Post Offices these days.