* FMP starting to add mother's maiden name to pre 1911 births

[LornaCraig]

I just noticed that Findmypast now have the mother's maiden name added to some pre 1911 births. If you click in the Mother's last name field in the search form it still says "This... can only be used for births from 1911 onwards", but for those records where they do have the mother's maiden name the search does work. This bodes well, as I assume they are aiming to add the mother's name to all GRO birth records eventually. (I don't know what proportion they have done).

When searching GRO's own online index you have to specify male or female and can only search plus or minus two years at a time, but with FMP their normal search options are available, making the search much less time consuming.

[AnneEast]

Oooh, that sounds good. Searching on the GRO index is quite tedious but it is free! I wonder if you will be able to search with just a mother's mn? The biggest problem with the GRO search is trying to second guess what mistranscription of the surname there might be. I use FreeBMD in conjunction with the GRO but the sometimes each make a different error!

I had a laugh today. Found a mother's mn to be Abson and thought it must be the wrong birth then suddenly realised it was probably the father saying 'Hobson' in a thick accent! It was the right one after all.
Anne