We've had a few people get in touch recently asking why some of the adverts they see on our websites don't seem very relevant, and in some cases feel a bit... low quality.

The answer usually comes down to one simple choice: whether or not you accept personalised advertising via cookies.

What's the difference?

When you visit our sites, you're asked whether you're happy to accept cookies. One of the ways we use them is to allow our partners to determine which adverts you may see: in other words, whether or not you’ll receive personalised adverts. If you accept cookies, the ads you’ll see will be personalised ads, since you’ll enable advertisers to show you content based on your interests (for example, genealogy services, books, or things you've searched for elsewhere).

If you decline cookies, you’ll still see ads, but advertisers are no longer able to tailor what you see.

That second option is absolutely fine, and entirely your choice. However, it does have an unintended side effect.

Why do the ads look worse?

Advertisers try to show their ads to people who are likely to be interested. If personalisation is switched on, they can target those audiences more precisely.

If personalisation is switched off, that targeting isn't possible. As a result advertisers will show ads “blindly”, i.e. the ads that appear are often more generic, or sometimes the kind of "clickbait" content many people dislike.

So it's not that we are choosing to show poorer adverts. It's due to how the advertising ecosystem works behind the scenes.

An example of a low-quality advertisement

Why do we show ads at all?

FreeBMD, FreeCEN, FreeREG, and (soon) FreePRO are free to use and always will be. However, keeping it free for you has a cost

Advertising is our main source of income and helps us to:

• keep the websites running
• maintain and improve the data
• support our volunteers and infrastructure

Without it, we wouldn't be able to provide access to over 500 million records for free.

At the same time, we know that advertising can affect how the site feels to use. We are committed to finding the right balance between generating the income we need and providing a good experience for our users. We are actively testing and finding ways to improve how adverts are displayed, with the aim of making them less intrusive while keeping our services sustainable.

An example of a better quality advertisement

What can you do?

You are always in control of your preferences. If you are seeing adverts that feel irrelevant or poor quality, you may wish to review your cookie settings and consider allowing personalised ads. Many users find this results in more relevant and less intrusive advertising.
If you prefer not to, that's completely fine too. We respect that choice, and we'll continue working to improve the experience as much as we can within those constraints.

We’d love your feedback

We are actively exploring ways to improve both the user experience and how advertising appears on the site. If you have thoughts, please do get in touch via the Contact form.

Since we introduced the new FreeBMD, we’ve received a great deal of thoughtful feedback. Some people have written to say how much they like the modern design and new features. Others, especially long-time users, have told us how much they prefer the original site and how worried they are about the change.

We want to begin by saying thank you. Every comment, whether positive or critical, helps us to make FreeBMD better for everyone.

“If it ain't broke…”

Many of you have told us how much you value the original FreeBMD, how reliable it has been for your research, and how much you appreciate the work of the volunteers who created and maintained it. We agree completely. The original FreeBMD has been a cornerstone of online family history research for more than twenty years, and it remains an extraordinary achievement.

We also understand why some people feel that “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” For those who have used the site for years and know exactly how to get the results they need, it feels perfect just as it is. However, not everyone has that same experience. Many newer users, and those using phones, tablets or assistive technologies, find the old design confusing or difficult to use. What feels simple and familiar to experienced researchers can be a real challenge for others. Our aim with the new FreeBMD is to make sure that everyone, regardless of experience or ability, can access and benefit from this remarkable resource.

For that reason, we want to reassure everyone that the original FreeBMD is not going anywhere. It will stay online and fully usable for the foreseeable future, and it will continue to be updated with new data every month.

Why we are building a new site

The decision to create a new version of FreeBMD was not taken lightly. It is not about replacing something that works well, but about making sure this vital resource remains accessible and sustainable in the years to come.

Today, more people search on phones and tablets than on desktop computers. Some visitors use screen readers or other assistive tools. Others (especially new users) simply find the old site difficult to use and navigate.

The new FreeBMD has been built to meet these needs, with a modern design, improved accessibility, and new tools that make searching faster and more flexible. These features are the foundation of a longer journey to make FreeBMD easier to use and more inclusive for everyone.

A work in progress, shaped by you

We know that change takes time to get used to, and that the new FreeBMD still has room to improve. That is why we are continuing to refine it using your feedback and experience.

Our goal is simple: the new FreeBMD should work at least as well as the original, and in time it should become even better.

You can continue to use both versions side by side:

Original FreeBMD: the familiar site that continues to receive monthly data updates

New FreeBMD: the modern version that will keep improving over time

Keep sharing your thoughts

Your feedback is essential to this process. If you have found something confusing, spotted a problem, or want to suggest a feature, please tell us. Even a short comment helps us to understand how people use the site and what matters most to them. You can use the “Give us feedback” button near the bottom of every page on the new site.

Together we can make sure that FreeBMD continues to serve family historians for many years to come — a step into the future, with respect for the past.

For over two decades, FreeBMD has helped millions of people trace their family histories via free access to our transcription of the General Register Office indexes of births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales. The site has become a trusted companion for researchers around the world and we’re proud of that legacy.

However, the way people search for information online has changed. Today’s users expect fast results, a clean and accessible design, and a site that works seamlessly on phones and tablets. We also know that our users value the simplicity and reliability that FreeBMD has always offered.

That’s why we’ve created the new FreeBMD: not just a fresh coat of paint, but a forward-looking website designed for the needs of researchers in 2025 and beyond.

What’s New?

The new FreeBMD brings an improved, more intuitive search experience, alongside a range of new features:

• Smarter searches – Autosuggest for names, counties and districts, ability to search all of England & all of Wales, form fields that adapt depending on the record type, default date ranges, clear “Revise Search” and “New Search” buttons, and sorting options on the results page.
• Better tools CSV, GEDCOM, and TSV downloads, clickable district names, and citation tools, and an improved print layout etc.
• A fresh design Accessible colours and language, mobile- and tablet-friendly, and part of the visual family of our sister sites FreeCEN and FreeREG.

Find out more about what's new.

We’re working to meet the WCAG AA accessibility standard so that the new FreeBMD is usable by everyone, regardless of ability.

Still a Work in Progress

Your feedback is vital to making it the best it can be. The original FreeBMD is still available, and we won’t be retiring it until we’re confident the new site matches — and surpasses — the features you rely on.

We invite you to:

• Explore the new site with fresh eyes
• Try out the new search tools and layouts
• Tell us what works — and what doesn’t

Every comment helps us improve, and every improvement brings us closer to a better FreeBMD for everyone.

New FreeBMD – a step into the future, with respect for the past.

Try the new FreeBMD now and let us know what you think.

At Free UK Genealogy, our tagline is “Human transcription of family history data”. It reflects our belief that accuracy, care, and human judgement are essential when making records freely available to researchers. With FreePRO – our new project to digitise and publish probate indexes from 1854–1943 – we are bringing this ethos into a new domain: printed probate registers.

Probate records are treasure troves of information. They record not just names and dates, but also occupations, addresses, values of estates, and the relationships between the deceased and their executors. The challenge is that these details are locked away in over 800 hefty volumes, covering nearly 7.5 million entries.

Why OCR matters

Unlike parish registers or census forms, probate indexes were printed, not handwritten. This makes them well-suited to Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – the process of turning scanned images into machine-readable text. Trials with software such as Tesseract have shown promising results: for some volumes, OCR can correctly identify names and addresses in the vast majority of entries.

But OCR is never perfect. As trustees discussed in our recent meeting, even good OCR output needs checking. Numbers (such as estate values) are especially error-prone, and place names can still be mangled.

Analysis of free text

The probate entries which we are OCR-ing are 'free text', but consistently-structured free text. If it were not so consistent, we couldn't do much more with OCR than replicate the text of each entry. We are developing a whole processing framework which carries out the analysis of each entry, and splits it up into individual items of data. The first step is to identify and separate out the individual entries. Errors which split one entry into two, or join two entries together, are flagged up and fixed. A second, more detailed check is then run on the edited source, looking for potential errors at the level of individual fields. Finally, we will have 'checking indexes' which tabulate alphabetically the values found for each field, clearly showing up inconsistencies at the data level.

The role of human transcribers

This is where our volunteers come in. Rather than typing out every entry from scratch, volunteers will review the OCR output text against the original page image. Their task is to:

• Correct errors introduced by OCR (misread letters, skipped lines, muddled numbers)
• Ensure key details such as names, relationships, and dates are captured correctly
• Enter markers into the source text to cope with unusual cases, such as multi-executor entries or entries split across pages

In other words, OCR provides the first draft – humans ensure the final version is accurate, searchable, and trustworthy.

Why this fits our ethos

This “OCR-assisted transcription” approach saves time while staying true to our principles. It means:

• Efficiency without compromise – OCR gets us started quickly, but accuracy still comes from human care.
• Volunteer expertise is central – just as volunteers in our other projects learn to decipher difficult handwriting, FreePRO volunteers will learn to spot and fix OCR quirks.
• Better data for researchers – the end result will be a richly searchable database, far more flexible than existing probate indexes.

The combination of OCR and human transcription is an innovation for Free UK Genealogy. It is also a way of honouring the trust placed in us: to make records free, accurate, and useful for generations to come.

By blending technology with human judgement, FreePRO will allow family historians to search by names, occupations, executors, and even addresses – opening up stories that have been hidden for over a century.