This page gives information about advanced facilities that are available
from FreeBMD. Most users of FreeBMD will be researching their family tree
and will use only the facilities of the search and, indeed, many will be
unaware of the more complex aspects of the search as described
here. However, there will also be a number
of users who wish to use more advanced research facilities and it is to this
community of users that this page is addressed.
Approximately every month the FreeBMD database is updated with new
transcriptions. In addition to the main search database that is created
at that time further information is produced some of which is made
available through the facilities described below; the remaining
information is used purely for diagnostic purposes. The information
made available exists as reports or other facilities (such as a search).
Because some of the reports are large they are available as a structured
hierarchy of pages.
This information is provided on an as-is basis. Although FreeBMD
will consider corrections to the presentation of this information, this
will not be given as high a priority as corrections to the search
database. Also we do not intend to answer question on how the
information can used. That is an exercise for the reader!
Before using any of the facilities below please ensure that you are
familiar with
the full facilities of the standard FreeBMD
search - maybe you don't need to use these
advanced facilities after all - and
the details of the Uncertain Character
Format - you will need this information to understand the results of
the advanced facilities.
Districts
General information about Districts can be found
here, which references the following
reports (the latter two are probably of less interest).
District Aliases
When creating the FreeBMD database district names that do not
correspond to the precise official district name are aliased to
the official district. This mapping
gives all the aliases that have been created for each official district.
County Mapping
This map gives the the districts that
are in each county and the dates between which this was true.
District to Volume Mapping
This listing gives the volumes that have
been found for each district and for which years.
District with Volume Clashes
This listing gives the volumes
that have been found for each year against each district; since one would
expect only one volume against each year this indicates a probable error
Page Ranges
The following two reports give the page ranges that have been found
for each district and volume. This information is only included where
there is sufficient data so if a district or quarter is missing there is
not enough data. Because of the nature of the data the determination of
the page range is done statistically and is not necessarily precise.
Indexed by event type
This listing
gives the page range for each district within a event and quarter.
Indexed by District
This listing
gives the page range for each event and quarter for each district.
Names
The surnames and given names found in the database can be searched using
this facility. Note that this is a
search of the unique names in the database, not the database itself. The
given names have been split, so an entry with three given names would
be counted as three separate names, not one name with three components.
There are two exceptions to this rule
St John is counted as one name and
Names with less than two characters are not included (they are
assumed to be initials)
Postems
To view the Postems that have been left by users use this
facility. The Postems are listed in the
order they were created but the facility offers the capability to filter
on different parts of Postem data. Note that Postems can get "unlinked"
meaning that the record has changed and we can no longer match the Postem.
Such Postems are shown in red. Tidying these is a manual process that is
is done on a regular basis.
Record Counts
The different record counts can be viewed
here. These show the number of entries
found for each quarter and there is also a facility to compare the values
between different updates of the database.
Advanced Facilities