Find My Past UK - Online Publishing
In April 2003, findmypast.co.uk, formerly 1837online.com, was the first company to make the complete birth, marriage and death civil registration indexes for England & Wales available online. It received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2007 in recognition of its achievement.
Following the transcription, scanning and indexing of over two million images, the company launched the first website to allow the public easy and fast access to the complete indexes, which until then had only been available on microfiche film in specialist archives and libraries. The launch was instrumental in creating the widespread and growing interest in genealogy seen in the UK today.
Findmypast.co.uk has subsequently digitised many more family history records and now offers access to over 750 million records dating as far back as 875AD. This allows family historians and novice genealogists to search for their ancestors among comprehensive collections of military records, census, migration, occupation directories, and current electoral roll data, as well as the original comprehensive birth, marriage and death records.
In November 2006 findmypast.co.uk launched ancestorsonboard.com in association with The National Archives to publish outbound passenger lists for long-distance voyages departing all British ports between 1890 and 1960.
The following year (December 2007) findmypast.co.uk was acquired by brightsolid, the company that was awarded The National Archives’ contract to publish online the 1911 census, which it launched in January 2009.
In 2010, in association with The National Archives, findmypast.co.uk launched the British Army Service Records 1760-1913.
