When family historians search for baptisms, marriages, and burials, place often feels like the most obvious piece of information to enter. Surely you just choose the parish and search?

In reality, “place” in church records is anything but straightforward. In FreeREG, the idea of place reflects centuries of local history, shifting boundaries, lost churches, and human behaviour, all of which affect where records were created and where they survive today.

To understand how FreeREG handles this complexity, we spoke with Dale Braden, FreeREG Technical Lead, about the choices made behind the scenes and what they mean for researchers.

One core idea of place - but many complications

FreeREG is built around a simple principle:

FreeREG records are organised by the place where a church is located.

That sounds simple until you look more closely.

Unlike birth, marriage, death and census records, church registers were never governed by a single national authority. They were religious documents, and there were many religious denominations.  Today the registers are scattered across county archives, diocesan collections, and local repositories. 

There is also no definitive historical list of every church that ever existed, nor even a complete list of all the places where churches once stood. Some churches disappeared centuries ago. Others were in hamlets that got absorbed into growing towns. In some cases, the only trace of the place left is a street name. Or just a line in a register.

This information is important because the decision was made in FreeREG to keep the distinction between the place, the church and the register, rather than combining them and losing the distinction between them.

Faced with this challenge when FreeREG was first developed around 25 years ago, the project made a key decision: instead of building a place list gradually and inconsistently, it would start with an existing, comprehensive source.

The Gazetteer: a practical foundation

FreeREG uses the Gazetteer of British Place Names as the foundation for its place list. This gazetteer includes

• Modern and historical place names
• Alternate spellings
• Geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude)

Its goal is completeness - listing any place name ever used - not specifically those containing a church. An unfortunate consequence of this is that it makes the list over complete from a FreeREG point of view. Many listed places never had a church; others no longer exist.  To avoid confusion, the Places list on the Search page of the FreeREG website only contains places for which we have records in the database.  The full list of places in a county can be seen by choosing Records from the main menu.

However, this approach has major advantages:

• Transcribers almost always find the place they need
• Spellings are standardised and consistent
• Places can be linked to geographic coordinates

Over time, FreeREG has corrected errors, removed duplicates, and added missing places. When a genuine historical place is absent, a dedicated Place Manager researches old maps and sources to confirm the location and assign accurate coordinates - a process that can take days.

This careful validation matters, because once a place exists in FreeREG, it becomes a stable reference point for all related records.

Inside St Mary's, Puddletown, Dorset (by Hugh Llewelyn). Evolving social etiquette shifted the parish name from 'Piddletown' in the 1950s (the original name came from the River Piddle). Databases like FreeREG use fixed coordinate lookups so that the name change doesn't break historical record searches.

Parish, place, and naming confusion

Church records introduce another layer of complexity: parishes and places are not always the same thing.

Parishes were often named after the local market town, but not always. Over the centuries:

• Parish churches were rebuilt, relocated, or replaced
• Population centres shifted due to industry or mining
• Chapels and mission churches became parish churches in their own right, while other churches lost this status or merged with other churches

In some cases, the parish retained its original name even after the parish church moved to a different town. In others, parishes spanned county boundaries or shifted administrative alignment altogether.

For example, some historic parishes crossed county lines, and the surviving registers may now be held in a different county archive from the one researchers expect.

FreeREG preserves what the register actually says, while linking it to a verified place name that researchers can recognise today.

St Mary’s Church, Stratfield Mortimer (by Peter S). Though late-19th-century shifts moved parts of this parish into Hampshire, FreeREG users must look for it under Berkshire to match the platform’s strict 1831 county boundary rules.

Why GPS coordinates matter

Although FreeREG does not yet offer an interactive map, every place in the database has geographic coordinates.
This helps researchers when:

• A place no longer appears on modern maps
• A village has been absorbed into a larger town
• A historic place name survives only as a street or district

Coordinates allow users to locate where a place was, even if they have never heard of it... even if Google Maps cannot find it.

Searching by place: less is more

One of Dale’s strongest pieces of advice for users is surprisingly simple: Don’t start with place unless you have to.

People did not always baptise, marry, or bury their dead where they lived. Marriages might take place in a neighbouring parish to avoid objections. Burials might occur miles away once churchyards became full. Baptisms could happen in the mother’s home parish, not the family’s current residence.

FreeREG’s search defaults are deliberately exact. This avoids the confusion caused by hidden algorithms, but it means that overly specific searches can miss records.

A better strategy is to:

1. Start broad
2. Narrow by date or name first
3. Use place only when needed to reduce results

Nearby Places: geography meets history

One of FreeREG’s most powerful - and underused - features is Nearby Places.

When this option is selected, FreeREG performs a radius search around the chosen place using GPS coordinates. Up to 100 nearby places are automatically included, extending the search several miles depending on local density.
This is invaluable when:

• A marriage took place in a neighbouring parish
• A burial occurred in a distant cemetery
• Families moved short distances between events

Unlike commercial sites, this feature is explicit and fully under the user’s control, not hidden inside a ranking algorithm.

Place as lived experience

Ultimately, FreeREG’s approach to place reflects how people actually lived:

• They crossed parish boundaries
• They ignored official systems when necessary
• They adapted to law, cost, distance, and circumstance

By grounding place in real geography, careful transcription, and historical awareness, FreeREG helps researchers move beyond rigid assumptions and closer to the lives behind the records.

As Dale put it, there is no single “right” way to search, but understanding how place works in FreeREG can make all the difference between a brick wall and a breakthrough.

With thanks to Dale Braden, FreeREG Technical Lead, for his expertise and extensive work documenting places in church records.

Every census record on FreeCEN begins its journey in much the same way. A volunteer carefully works through a census page, deciphering 19th-century handwriting and recording the information so that it can eventually be searched by family historians around the world.

What is less obvious is that transcription is only the first step.

Before those records can appear on the website, they pass through three stages: transcription, proofreading and validation. Each stage relies on volunteers with different skills, and each plays an important part in producing a high-quality resource that researchers can trust.

Today, we'd like to shine a light on proofreading.

A second pair of eyes

Once a census piece has been transcribed, it is passed to a proofreader.

The proofreader compares the completed transcription against the original census image, checking each entry carefully. They resolve any queries left by the transcriber, correct the occasional mistake and ensure the spreadsheet is ready for the next stage of the process.

It is much more than simply reading through someone else's work. It is an opportunity to look at the census page afresh, bringing another perspective to the interpretation of often challenging handwriting.

Like transcription, proofreading calls for patience, attention to detail and a willingness to take the time needed to get things right.

An example of a tricky census page

An important part of the journey

At the moment, around 1310 census pieces are waiting to be proofread. Together, they contain about 400 thousand pages. That's up to 13 million people whose census entries have already been transcribed but are not yet available for researchers to discover on FreeCEN.

Across the project, we currently have only around 26 volunteers who proofread on a regular basis.

If each proofreader spends an average of three hours a week checking census pieces, it would take well over a year to clear today's backlog alone. Of course, transcription work continues throughout that time, so the queue is constantly growing.

This is one of those situations where a relatively small number of additional volunteers could make a significant difference.

Different counties, different needs

The picture varies across the project.

Some counties have sufficient active proofreaders and transcribers to keep transcription and proofreading in balance, allowing newly transcribed records to move steadily through the workflow.

Others, for a number of reasons, have a much larger proofreading backlog. At present, Surrey, Devon and Glamorgan are among the counties where additional proofreading support would have the greatest impact, helping thousands of records move one step closer to publication.

Is proofreading for you?

Many volunteers naturally gravitate towards transcription. There is a real satisfaction in tackling a census page for the first time and gradually revealing the information it contains.

Proofreading offers a different kind of satisfaction.

It suits people who enjoy careful, methodical work, have an eye for detail, and like comparing a transcription with the original document to make sure the record is as accurate as it can be. If you've spent time transcribing, you'll already be familiar with many of the conventions and challenges involved, making proofreading a natural way to broaden your contribution.

Even proofreading the occasional census piece can help reduce the backlog and bring more records closer to publication.

Looking ahead

Proofreading is the second of the three stages that every census piece passes through before it becomes searchable. The final stage is validation, where volunteers investigate any remaining queries and carry out the final checks before records are added to the FreeCEN database.

We'll be taking a closer look at validation in our next article, and why it offers another fascinating opportunity for volunteers who enjoy historical and geographical research.

In the meantime, if your county has little new material to transcribe, or if you're looking for a new way to contribute, why not consider trying proofreading? Every completed piece helps move another part of our shared history a little closer to the people waiting to discover it.

Can you help FreeREG grow as a County Coordinator? We have several counties with images and transcribers and a caretaker coordinator following retirements. If you’re familiar with transcribing, organised, supportive and confident with digital tools, this flexible home-based volunteer position is ideal for stepping into the role for the first time.

About the opportunity

FreeREG is part of Free UK Genealogy, a charity providing free online access to millions of family history records so people can discover and share their family and community stories. Our work depends on dedicated volunteers who transcribe and publish historic parish and register records for public benefit.

We are looking for committed volunteers from within the FreeREG/Free UK Genealogy community to take on the role of County Coordinator.

County Coordinators play an important part in helping FreeREG run smoothly. You will support transcribers working on records for your county, help manage the flow of images and data, and act as a key point of contact for both volunteers and researchers.

The role includes:

• Supporting transcribers who have completed training and helping them with questions or issues
• Working with archives and photographers to obtain register images
• Uploading and organising images on the FreeREG Image Server where permitted
• Recruiting and supporting volunteer transcribers as needed
• Assigning transcription work and reviewing submissions to help maintain high standards
• Responding to enquiries and correction requests from researchers and volunteers
• Making updates or corrections to records where necessary

The role is remote (from anywhere in the world) and flexible, with an estimated commitment starting from 4 to 6 hours per week. Most communication takes place online through email and occasional Google Meet video calls.

At present we have a number of counties where the coordinator has retired and the county is being temporarily managed by a caretaker coordinator. These counties have existing images and transcribers so are a great opportunity for someone to step into the role as a County Coordinator for the first time.

You will be supported by the wider FreeREG and Free UK Genealogy volunteer community, including our training volunteers, existing FreeREG coordinators and the project leadership team.

This is an excellent opportunity for someone already familiar with FreeREG who would like to take a more active role in supporting the project and helping preserve accessible family history records for future generations.

How Coordinators help FreeREG

FreeREG relies entirely on volunteers to create and maintain high-quality transcriptions of historic parish and register records. County Coordinators are central to making that work possible.

By supporting transcribers and helping organise the flow of records and images, you will help ensure that valuable historical information becomes freely available online for researchers, historians, and families around the world.

The role also helps maintain the accuracy and consistency of our records. Your support and oversight will help volunteers feel confident and connected, improving both volunteer retention and the quality of published transcriptions.
County Coordinators also help strengthen relationships with archives and photographers, making it possible for FreeREG to continue expanding the range of records available to the public.

Every new set of records published can help someone uncover a family connection, understand their local history, or break through a long-standing research problem. Your contribution will directly support that work and help preserve historical information that might otherwise remain difficult to access.

As Free UK Genealogy continues developing its projects and volunteer community, County Coordinators play an essential role in sustaining and growing FreeREG for the future.

What qualities and experience are required for the role?

We are looking for someone who is organised, approachable, and comfortable supporting other volunteers.

You should have:

• An interest in family history and experience as a FreeREG/Free UK Genealogy transcriber
• Familiarity with parish registers, bishops’ transcripts, or nonconformist records
• An appreciation for the scholarly nature of FreeREG’s work and understanding of the importance of producing, accurate, and authoritative transcriptions. We place greater importance on quality and reliability than on volume.
• Good computer skills, particularly using internet browsers and spreadsheets
• Confidence communicating by email and through online meetings
• Good organisational skills and attention to detail
• The ability to respond to enquiries in a timely and supportive way

It would be beneficial if you have the ability to attend Google Meet video calls using a computer with a camera and microphone.

To find out more and apply, please email dale.braden@freeukgenealogy.org.uk

When you search for births, marriages or deaths in the Civil Registration Index using FreeBMD, you’ll notice that each entry is registered in a district rather than simply a county. Sometimes the district name matches the county, but often it doesn’t!

This small detail can make a big difference when you’re trying to find the right certificate for your ancestor, especially if they have a common name. To help explain what registration districts are, and why they matter, we asked one of FreeBMD’s Volunteers, Jeff Coleman (a Syndicate Coordinator and FreeBMD Steering Committee Member) to guide us through everything you need to know.

What is a ‘district’?

A registration district is a geographical area responsible for recording births, marriages and deaths (BMDs). Each district has a Superintendent Registrar, who oversees registration within that area, and local registrars who record events in smaller sub-districts.

Every event is registered in the district where it actually occurred. When you order a certificate, the district name is therefore a vital clue. It appears on official certificates, in the General Register Office (GRO) indexes, and on FreeBMD.

Today, registration district boundaries in England and Wales broadly follow local authority areas such as counties, metropolitan districts or London boroughs. But when civil registration began in 1837, the story was quite different.

From Parishes to Poor Law Unions

Before 1837, England and Wales were divided into counties and parishes, which were responsible for everything from road maintenance to poor relief. Baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded in parish registers.

As industrialisation reshaped society, the old system struggled. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 grouped parishes into new administrative bodies called Poor Law Unions, which ran workhouses and collected “poor rates”.

Just a few years later, the Registration Act and the Marriage Act of 1836 introduced civil registration. When the new system came into force on 1 July 1837, each Poor Law Union became a registration district creating 619 districts in total. These were required to send returns to the newly created General Register Office (GRO), which compiled national indexes of births, marriages and deaths. These indexes are the foundation of the FreeBMD database we use today.

Workhouse, Nantwich

How Districts Have Changed Over Time

Early registration districts were often small, typically covering around 10,000 people, because registrars had to travel by horse or on foot to collect information. As transport improved, districts were merged together into larger ones, especially from the 1930s onward.

The local government reorganisation of 1974 brought a wave of renamings and mergers, with some changes continuing into the 1990s. Generally, districts are smaller than counties but larger than parishes; some are centred on towns, while others surround them (for example, Atcham almost encircles Shrewsbury).

So if you find that your ancestor’s district “moves” or disappears between censuses, it’s not your eyes playing tricks, it’s administrative history at work.

Why Districts Can Be Confusing

Over the years, registration districts have been merged, renamed, split and reorganised many times. Parishes, or even parts of parishes, could move between districts, sometimes crossing county lines in the process.

For example:

• A birth in Choppington, Northumberland, (found in a census) could have been registered in Morpeth district (1837–1936) or later Northumberland Central (1937–1974).
• Someone born in Port Isaac, Cornwall, would appear under Bodmin district, since Port Isaac was part of the parish of St Endellion, which fell within that district.

Districts have even come and gone multiple times. Cardiff, for example, existed as a registration district from 1837 until 1974 when it was replaced by South Glamorgan, and then reappeared in 1996 after local government reorganisation.

To complicate matters further, some districts officially existed but never registered any events (such as Dore, which lasted only a few months in 1837), and some parishes appear in districts centred in other counties, such as Loughor in Glamorgan which was in Llanelly district in Carmarthenshire for nearly a century.

Behind the Scenes: How Districts Are Transcribed

All FreeBMD transcriptions come directly from images of the original GRO index pages. Many of these pages handwritten or typed long before digital databases existed. 

Our transcribers work carefully from these scans, entering each district name exactly as it appears, however unusual it might look. That’s why you might spot abbreviations such as Knaresbro’ for Knaresborough, St Geo East for St George in the East, or Bethnal Gn for Bethnal Green.

Each entry also includes a volume and page number. Volumes were assigned by the GRO to group areas together (for instance, Volume 1 from 1837 included several London districts such as Bloomsbury and Marylebone, while Volume 6 included Bedfordshire districts like Bedford and Woburn). These volumes don’t always follow county boundaries but reflect how the GRO received and organised information.

After transcription, FreeBMD’s district aliasing process matches all the variants, including obsolete spellings like Aberystwith instead of Aberystwyth, to their official district names ensuring that your searches return accurate results.

Different spellings of some districts in the FreeBMD database

How FreeBMD Handles District Names

FreeBMD follows a strict “type what you see” rule when transcribing the GRO indexes. This means that if an entry says Bloomsbury, that’s what appears in the database. Behind the scenes, a process called district aliasing matches these names to their official equivalents.

For example, a death registered in “Bloomsbury” in 1846 appears on FreeBMD with a note that “Bloomsbury is an alternative name for St Giles.” This ensures your searches will still find the record, no matter which name was used at the time.

When you click a district name in your search results, FreeBMD links you to its UKBMD page, which lists the parishes it covered, the counties it spanned, and how it changed over time.

Using Districts in Your Research

Understanding districts can help narrow down searches for common surnames. For example, all those Smiths in Liverpool! If you know roughly where someone was born or died, focusing on that district can save a lot of time.

But be careful: a death might be registered in a different district if the person died in a hospital outside their home area. If you can’t find someone where you expect, look at neighbouring districts too. Sometimes you may have to look even further afield if they died whilst travelling.

When ordering a certificate from the GRO, always check the volume and page number from FreeBMD by viewing the scanned index page. This lets you verify the transcription and ensure you’re ordering the correct record. This saves you time, money, and potential frustration.

Useful Resources

To discover which district covered a particular place or how those districts changed, these resources are invaluable:

• UKBMD: lists registration districts, their dates, and the parishes they contained at different dates, with a downloadable index of place names.
• GENUKI: provides parish and county histories, often with maps and census links.
• FreeBMD District Information: explains how districts are used in searches, with links to both county and district details.

Understanding registration districts isn’t just about geography, it’s about history, too. By learning how these districts were created, changed, and recorded, you’ll gain valuable context for your ancestors’ lives and find their records with greater confidence.

Article based on contributions from Jeff Coleman, FreeBMD Syndicate Coordinator and Steering Committee Member.