Free resources

Family history research is an expensive business.

Here are some suggestions for finding information for free.

familysearch.org is free. A most wonderful resource for many countries. Includes 1881 census for England and Wales

scotlandspeople.gov.uk is now free to search.  To see the record you need to pay though.
You can view transcription of 1881 (LDS) census for free https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/advanced-search/#{"category":"census"}


freecen.org.uk UK wide censuses.  Patchy coverage but most areas are covered in 1841.

freebmd.org
 England and Wales birth, marriages and deaths

freereg.org.uk   UK

gro.gov.uk   You can search for births and deaths in England and Wales

sctbdm.org.uk  Scottish births marriages and deaths, user submitted records. This site seems to be no longer available. (September 2018)


If you are serious, you want  to sign up to ancestry.co.uk or findmypast.co.uk  Start with a basic account.  Ancestry offers a free trial and is often free over holiday weekends.
Some libraries offer free access to ancestry.

Some records on findmypast are free to view

Also check out
http://genealogydiscount.co.uk for offers.


1940 US census is free
http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/world-records/full-list-of-united-states-records/census-land-and-substitutes/us-census-1940-free-access


1921 census of Canada is free
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=8991

Wolfram alpha

This is a computational site. I'm sure it has lots of uses.

I use it to find the day of a week a certain date was.  e.g. Try typing in your birthdate. It will tell you the day of the week and exactly how old you are with months and days. And lots more.

It comes into its own to pinpoint a date from a newspaper report.

For example I found a newspaper report of a death "last Tuesday". The date of the newspaper is 10 Sep 1864. So to find the date of death simply type in the date

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10+sep+1864

10th was a Saturday so the previous Tuesday was the 6th September 1864.

QED

Scotlandspeople - name search

I had not really used this feature until recently.

I think the reason was that it gives far too many results if you type in a common name like Robert Wilson.  Yikes!

You can restrict results by date e.g. from 1850 - 1950

However, if the name is less common or if especially you have a middle name as well, it will give you all matching records at once.

Here are the 3 results for Edna Stewart Sinclair. You can view at each and use the back arrow to return to this screen. Result!