On February 1st, I announced the final step in our transition to FreeCEN2 transcription uploads to coordinators. The FreeCEN2 website launched in 2017, almost six years ago. The new website is much more accessible and has a much better user interface. FreeCEN1 (the old website) will be available until FreeCEN2 has all of the features on FreeCEN1. Data updates to FreeCEN1 have ceased as we can no longer support the old update method. 

The new website has a different uploading mechanism, developed to replace obsolete software programs, improve data quality and, in future, to enable better search facilities. We have continued to support both systems for a period of parallel running. However, this is not an efficient use of resources, and is not intended to be a permanent solution. 

We have engaged with our transcribers to support their transition to the new platform and address any concerns. Nearly all of our transcribers have now transitioned to the new platform. In the last 18 months or so, coordinators have incorporated over 4.5 million records into the new system with no significant issues. Whilst the new spreadsheets collect some additional information, the overall work involved is reduced because the need for repetitive entries has been eliminated.

The future development of FreeCEN is contained in a plan that we call the Roadmap, which transcribers can in your list of Actions on the FreeCEN2 login page. This Roadmap is available to everybody with a login and is currently being updated. We have now completed Phases 1 and 2 of the Roadmap and are close to completing all the currently possible parts of Phase 3. Phase 4 involves search engine enhancements for researchers.

After careful consideration by the trustees, and on the recommendation of the FreeCEN Committee, we have decided to bring the transition to an end and have set 31st March 2023 as the final date for uploading VLDs. The decision to cease these uploads was not taken lightly. It was taken for the greater benefit of FreeCEN and the researchers who search our records. It will allow us to commence the development of additional search options for researchers in Phase 4 of the Roadmap. Any work that you may have done on the traditional spreadsheets, and which has not been published, will not be lost. These spreadsheets will still be able to be managed by coordinators using the options available in FreeCEN2 for conversion and validation.

We know that this is a difficult transition. We accept that some transcribers and coordinators may decide not to transition to the new platform. If your coordinator is not transitioning please email me so that we can ensure you are supported. If you haven’t already created a login on FreeCEN2, you can do this by following the steps in this video: 

When it comes to choosing a county, please select the one you are working on currently.

Free UK Genealogy is an organisation built on volunteers and we value your contributions enormously. We want to support people as much as we can to move to the new platform and we hope that as many as possible can make the transition and continue to produce something that our users value very highly.

Denise Colbert, Chief Operating Officer of Free UK Genealogy
Email: info@freeukgenealogy.org.uk

Anna Wilson is a Free UK Genealogy volunteer and PHAROS student.

Here, she shares with us an example of how FreeREG helped her track down the baptism record of her four-times great grandfather, William Dunbar.

I have been researching my family history since 2004 after discovering three Victorian photograph albums in a dark corner of my parent's attic. It's a large attic and was full of ‘stuff’ so these albums had been left untouched for years. My father stated that he had never seen them before even though the house had been his family home since the 1960s. 

The photograph albums led to the discovery that my paternal great-grandparents were Scottish and offered me the opportunity to delve into the amazing records available at ScotlandsPeople.

This was until I came across the name of my four times great grandfather William Dunbar. I easily found trees online which included William and a baptism record for him on the 14th April 1754 in Whittinghame, East Lothian. The actual baptism record detailed the name of his father Alexander Dunbar and his mother Helen Pringle, and I happily continued to work on my tree entering in the details of his marriage and children. 

I tend to bulk the wish list of records I want to purchase with credit at ScotlandsPeople as it keeps me on a focused path rather than straying into looking at ‘potential’ records and using up all my credit. So it was months later that I obtained a copy of Peter Taylor’s will, my three times great grandfather, who had been married to Ratchel Dunbar, William’s daughter.

Peter Taylor, family photograph

Peter Taylor’s will was a gem of a genealogical document for both the Taylor and Dunbar families. It referred to land that Ratchel had inherited from her father, which had belonged to William Dunbar’s mother… Ratchel Galloway. This was an unfamiliar name: where was Helen Pringle? I revisited the records I had about William. His marriage to Catherine Patterson was in 1785 in Haddington, East Lothian. Their marriage occurred before the introduction of Civil Registration in Scotland in 1855 and so I was reliant on the Old Parish Registers of marriage. The entry stated that they had been irregularly married in Edinburgh – perhaps more information would be in the Kirk Session Records but residing in Somerset a visit to the National Records of Scotland (NRS) would not be happening any time soon.

So, I searched ScotlandsPeople again changing dates, names, and locations with the same three results but none relating to William Dunbar the son of Alexander Dunbar and Ratchel Galloway. 

By 2018 I had been trying to search for William Dunbar’s correct baptism for 2 years. I discovered that FreeREG had great coverage of baptisms, marriages and burials for the East Lothian area. I decided to use their search engine, making sure I used the Soundex facility. In less than a minute, bingo: there he was William Dumbar, baptised in the September of 1759 in Haddington, East Lothian just below the other William Dunbar baptised 1754 in Whittinghame, East Lothian. Clicking on the entry his father was Alexander Dunbar and his mother was transcribed as Rahall Gallaway, with William Gallaway as a witness.

Baptism record of William Dumbar on FreeREG

So why could I not find the original image on ScotlandsPeople? 

I went back to ScotlandsPeople and searched using ‘Rahall Galloway’ as William’s parent and used phonetic and wildcard searches to match the transcription of the baptism entry and there it was in the search results. It recorded William Dumbar’s parents as Alexander Dumbar and Rachall Galloway and I was able to purchase the correct baptism for my William Dunbar – leading to a different family to that of Alexander Dunbar and Helen Pringle. 

So, some valuable lessons learnt along the way:

• Always verify the information and sources from online trees, 
• Never give up on brick walls,
• Find as many records relating to an ancestor as possible,
• Use as many search facilities as possible to find them,
• Always use phonetic and wildcard searches on different websites
• If FreeREG covers your area of interest in Scotland it is a great resource to identify names that have been mistranscribed as well as assist in narrowing down the relevant individual before you spend your credit at ScotlandsPeople.

I wish I had found FreeREG sooner!

With everything going on in the world at the moment, alongside all the recent changes at Free UK Genealogy, we have had a number of volunteers ask for more information about our financial position. We hope it would be interesting to volunteers to share a bit more about how our finances work and what we have been doing recently to put us on a firmer footing.

Inherently, our financial position is very robust. Our operating model is built around hundreds of volunteers – transcribers, coordinators, developers and trustees. We have a very limited staff of just four people, only two of whom are full time. All our operations were remote, even before COVID, so we have no costs for an office or travel. Our total financial expenses are around £9,000 per month. This compares to the value of donated time which we estimate at around £250,000 per month.

Historically, advertising income has provided £6,500 per month and ad-hoc donations another £700.  Whilst this is able to fund most of our costs, it doesn’t cover everything. In addition we found our advertising income to be increasingly erratic which is a concern given our dependence on this form of funding. As a result we have run a small deficit over the last few years. We had managed to build up significant reserves from a commercial licensing deal which we have been slowly consuming. Our reserves have fallen below the minimum specified in our reserves policy so action was unavoidable to ensure the charity’s finances were sustainable. 

This is why in 2021 the trustees decided to shift our emphasis onto donations and established a Fundraising Steering Committee. We recruited a specific trustee, Kathryn Streatfield, with fundraising experience to help with this effort. We set a fundraising target of £14,000 for 2022 and a longer term target that donations cover 20% of operating expenses. We have increased donor communications, started a specific donations pop-up which has run monthly on FreeCEN and FreeREG (and will start soon on FreeBMD) and plan to participate in this November’s “Big Give” campaign. 

We know that many of our users and supporters are willing and able to support us in this way. However, we also know that others prefer to contribute through their volunteer work. This is just as important to us and is very much appreciated! We have tried our best to ensure our donation appeals are sensitive to this - particularly at a time like now when many people are feeling the stretch. We also want to ensure that our adverts do not detract from the user experience.

Earlier this year we signed a new agreement with MyHeritage, replacing some of our Google AdSense adverts with specially designed ‘widget’ adverts. This provides users with more relevant and targeted adverts, as well as increasing engagement and the revenue we raise. This has been successful in boosting our advertising income, and we have now moved this to a permanent partnership.

Finally, we have had a sustained effort at managing our costs better. Overall this has reduced our run rate from £15,000 per month in 2018 to £9,000 per month today. However, we know we have to balance this cost control against ensuring the projects get all the support they need to keep delivering our charitable objectives, which has certainly been a challenge recently. And with inflation affecting our costs and our staff, we know that we should expect an increase in costs in the near future, however strict we are with controls.

These three areas - donations, adverts and cost control - have successfully turned round our position. We are now running a monthly surplus and expect to be back within our reserves policy by early next year. This more robust financial position means we can focus on ensuring our resources are dedicated to supporting our websites and our volunteers and delivering our objectives – making genealogy records available - in the best way possible.

We are keen to be open and transparent about our finances in future and communicate more about this. Our annual accounts are published, like all charities, on the Charity Commission website. 

I’m happy to respond to any concerns or queries from any of our volunteers and hear any ideas you have - please email me if you want to get in touch.

Free UK Genealogy is going through a period of change at the moment, with the retirement from the projects of a number of long-serving staff and volunteers. They have all been critical to the huge success we have had with these projects and I wanted to add my voice to say a big thank you for their long service.

There is now a greater need for additional technical volunteering. Reflecting on this important priority, Richard Light has decided to move from his current role as Chair of Trustees to a new role, where he will be actively involved in program development (initially on the FreeBMD2 project). He hopes this change will strengthen the links between the software development work and the Trustees, and that it will encourage other volunteer developers to come forward. We believe this will be a great help to this critical need for the organisation and ensure we can continue to be technically robust and develop further into the future.

The board of trustees have asked me, an existing trustee, to assume the role of chair with effect from September 2022. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the projects and explain how I see the role working going forward.

I have been a trustee of Free UK Genealogy since 2018, but a user of the projects for much longer. I've been researching my family history since 1985 and using FreeBMD, FreeCEN and FreeREG regularly since their early days. I'm passionate about free data, being a founder and former trustee of Wikimedia UK, which supports the Wikipedia family of websites in the UK. My day job is working as a risk manager for a mortgage lender which (whilst very different from FreeUKGEN) gives me a good financial background and I'm familiar with the requirements of good governance.

As trustees we recognise that we need to improve our communications, in particular with the key project volunteers, and this blog is one of the ways we will do this, The trustees have been very focussed recently on securing our financial future (which I'll share more on shortly) and managing staff changes. However, we realise that it's ultimately the volunteers — transcribers, coordinators, developers etc. — who deliver our goals as a charity: the record transcriptions that our users value so much. Whilst none of us have a magic wand to solve all problems, we want to be better at understanding what we can do to help the projects deliver and develop.

I know we have sent out quite a few surveys in recent months and a big thank you to everyone who has filled those in. They have given us a much better sense of what we should be focusing on, what is creating value and how we can make a difference. However, they are also (mostly) anonymous which means it's difficult for us to follow up directly on specific comments. If anyone has anything they want to follow up on please feel free to email me any time on Andrew.Turvey@freeukgenealogy.org.uk. I will always be keen to hear feedback on how we are doing and views and ideas on what we can do differently!