I title this series “Websites”, however, it is more along the lines of family history subscriptions. I admit I do have a subscription to FindMyPast. It is not cheap and seems to increase every year as most things do.
What is FindMyPast?
It is a family history website where you can research your ancestors. So, FindMyPast does come along in a variety of ways. You can add your tree to their website.
They have a YouTube channel. There is a live stream broadcast at 4 PM UK time each Friday. The time is inconvenient for me since I live in Australia.
I do the catch-up and watch it in my own time. I must admit, I move it along with all the greetings etc. I am more interested in the content than who is actually there.
I use FindMyPast for my research. There is always new content being added from various sources. Just remember, if you don’t find what you are looking for today, it may be there another day.
The following is written for the novice family researcher. However, those who have been using the site for some time may find something they didn’t know, like as a refresher as I have. If you don’t have a subscription you can commence a seven-day free trial and then decide if it’s for you.
Accessing the site.
There are various sites located in and around the world. The ones that I have used are FindMyPast.co.uk and FindMyPast.com.au. I have found no real difference, once logged in.
On the website page (FindMyPast.co.uk), scroll down and have a look around. You can:
- Start Your Family Tree.
- Check out the 1921 UK Census.
- Join Facebook, YouTube and read the FindMyPast blog.
FindMyPast is in partnership with the National Archives UK, British Library and the Family History Federation. You can also Search Trees.
The front page of FindMyPast.com.au is slightly different. I suggest you have a look around before logging in.
Please note: FindMyPast is updated regularly so what I have written may be slightly different when you access the site.
logging in.
Now to log in. Once logged in you are presented with the landing page. You will be presented with the following page where you can:
- “Search All Records”. (Left-hand side)
- Start Building Your Family Tree plus a lot of other information.
- Scrolling down from here there are Quick Links (Left-hand side)
- There is information about the 1921 UK census. NOTE: a subscription may be required to view the full records.
- Share Your Discoveries.
- Give a Gift Subscription.
- And Download the App.
Further down the page is FindMyPast Friday’s broadcast live as I mentioned above. Once you get to the bottom of the screen the “Back to the Top” is useful so no scrolling up to the top.
Top Menu.
The menu right at the top of the page is:
Family Tree, Search, Newspapers, 1921 Census, My Records, Help & more, plus Messages (the envelope) and My Account.
I will not be discussing all of these. I am sure that you will understand from these menus you can discover some interesting details about your ancestors. Under Family Tree, you can view your tree, if you decide to add it to this site. My Records shows a list of the records you have viewed when doing your research. My suggestion is to have a look around at each of the items on the menu so you know what is available and what you may find or stumble across.
At the time of writing, there are 2700 plus record sets and billions of records: births and marriages, newspapers, parish registers, census records, travel and immigration as well as military records.
Each week new records are added. These appear in the Friday’s. FindMyPast has exclusive records so please check these out under the help section.
My Take on FindMyPast.
The yearly subscription is expensive but the amount of information (records) available does make it worth it. The record sets cover the United Kingdom extremely well and since the majority of my ancestors commenced their stories there, it is of great benefit to me. I do know I need to use it more.
Explore and Discover.
Acknowledgements: All pics on this page have been taken from the FindMyPast website. The fullscreen shots under “Accessing the site” and “Logging in” have had content blanked out for confidentiality reasons.