Many records of births, marriages, and deaths (BMDs) can be accessed physically and digitally, in official repositories and archives, or via the websites of these organisations and others. There is often a fee to pay to search and view them, but there are many places that you can see them without charge.
It’s important to be clear about the type of record you are going to be able to access via any given website or repository. Usually the choice is between indexes and the records themselves – but in some cases both are available in one place. You may be able to look at digital images of a page in an index volume or parish register, or transcribed versions of those – in which case you should seek out the original image where possible, either online or in a record office. Original records are themselves not immune to inaccuracy, but transcriptions are much more prone to human or machine error.
So, once you’ve decided which kind of BMD record suits your research goals, you have plenty of free-to-access resources to choose from.
UK and Ireland
One of the best websites in terms of free availability of records is Irish Genealogy. While images aren’t yet online for every record, a good proportion are, and the index makes them easily searchable. Alternative indexes to Irish civil registration records are available at FamilySearch, Ancestry and other providers, and you may
