Why have many records from the England and Wales Birth Registration Index suddenly disappeared?
Would be grateful if you could assist on this one. A search on records from the collection at
England and Wales, Birth Registration Index, 1837-2008
seems to have become largely restricted to records from 1921 - i.e., hardly anything for the 1837-1920 period. Could you kindly confirm whether this is by accident or design?
Answers
-
Here is a further screenshot showing the results for a 1921-2007 search on the same surname
2 -
@Paul W I was made aware of this yesterday through Feedback and this morning the numbers are worse than yesterday. It is again related to changed permissions after automated updates, but this one has a twist. All of those missing have a bogus death date which I would assume is connected to the trigger:
You would only see this in records attached to the tree. As you reported, they are blocked in Search.
Thank you for the prompt alert.
4 -
I won't open a new post, but it seems the availability for civil marriage records for England and Wales has also changed in recent days. I just undertook a search (using the same GREENGRASS surname) both within the collection at
England and Wales, Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005
and from the main search page and got no results post 1921 on this occasion. Using the collection, the results went no further than 1861!
And here's a search from https://www.familysearch.org/en/search
2 -
Thank you for your earlier response - received while I was typing my later post!
1 -
I didn't know about Marriage Registrations, so I guess we better be looking at Death Registration too. Thank you and I will update later.
3 -
I just carried out two searches on death registrations and, interestingly, received a different amount of results in searching directly from the collection itself, then from the main search page, but using the filter that one would have thought should give identical results.
Regardless, these do not seem to be affected in the same way as births and marriages.
First screenshot shows search results using
England and Wales, Death Registration Index 1837-2007
Now by searching from https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/record/results?
Thank you again for giving your attention to these issues.
0 -
@Paul W Apparently all three of these civil registration index collections are currently being migrated to the new storage platform. The death date being added to birth registration is also occurring in the migration so that one has been halted. Engineers recognize this as a bad bug and I don't know how long it will take to restore permissions.
3 -
So apparently one should not use any of the FamilySearch civil registration index collections until further notice? It's good that there are partner sites available - had to resort to source documentation from them during the past few days, since it appears FS is in the middle of bad bug. How will we know when it's ready to go?
0 -
I guess we have no option than to be patient while this mess is sorted out.
Personally, I was part way through a "one name" project that involved adding civil BMD records to a large number of profiles sharing the same surname. I'm having to postpone that for now, as there are virtually no birth records and very few marriage ones to add as sources to these (English) individuals on whom I am working.
Very disappointed I can't proceed with my project, without merely adding reason statements against their vitals (like "FreeBMD" or "GRO index"), especially where the URLs offer no direct link to add as sources to FamilySearch.
2 -
You can still search for and attach birth registration index records; however, as the search tool thinks they also have death info, the search is removing them if you have any other search terms included beyond birth. So if you just delete marriage, death etc from the search form, you’ll be able to see the birth registration index hits again. It’s a fairly simple workaround for the moment.
Then, once attached, I manually go to the source and replace the death “tag” with a birth “tag” so that it avoids one level of confusion (until that erroneous death info is removed by the engineers in due course).1 -
This is not working for me. Perhaps you could kindly provide a screenshot / URL to help me find the FamilySearch record for the birth registration of Clara Amanda Greengrass, found here on the FreeBMD site:
or for (her spouse) Ben Laws
I'm inputting minimal data into the search page and finding census and other records, but not their birth registrations. True, some areas / periods are still available, but personally I can find few births and marriage registrations.
2 -
@BeeversJE - I also can't make it work. I tried to search for the birth of Ezra Manning, filtering down to the relevant collection. I didn't add anything else to the search. I got lots of results, all for variants of E Manning. If I try to mark the names as Exact, then I get zero results. (Yes, there is such a person with a birth reg)
I'm loth to say whether it's the same issue as the search can be weird anyway as soon as you start asking for exact names, places, type, principal etc. All of which can be necessary to avoid thousands of results. (Please people, don't say "Less is more" - it certainly is more - thousands more!)
2 -
I just tested as well, using several names that I know are listed in the database. Zero results.
2 -
When permissions are lost, the record becomes unsearchable. Search will not retrieve restricted records. As I stated previously, "Engineers recognize this as a bad bug and I don't know how long it will take to restore permissions." Sorry for the confusion.
4 -
I too am seriously hindered by the birth marriages and deaths bug. Attaching the birth record is almost like a research log to show my future self that I've found all children at the GRO and that the family is "finished". I've been focussing on findagrave for my one name studies but I'm now a point where I can't do any more research. This is dozens of sources a day I can't attach. Please can the engineers undo this asap 🙏
1 -
Personally, I am not finding Deaths so much of a problem. I had intended to leave my one-name projects alone until this issue was fixed, but needed to check out some added incorrect relationships in connection to an individual on my Following list. Unfortunately, I am unable to add "direct evidence", by way of birth and marriage sources, as the records are no longer offered, for the reason explained.
Naturally, I am adding details of from the FreeBMD and GRO records against the Reason Statements in the Vitals sections, but certainly not the same as being able to have the FS versions of the BMDs in the Sources sections.
I'm sure @SerraNola is doing all she can in helping to get the issue resolved, but I agree, for those of us with a belief in the importance of attaching the FS 19th and 20th century England & Wales registration records as evidence, a fix can't come soon enough.
2 -
@SerraNola if we're aware of profiles with an incorrect record do you want notification? I noticed a birth registration index record that was added to a profile in January 2026; are these going to be removed and replaced with a corrected record?
0 -
Thank you for your response.
However, I can confirm this appears to be an ongoing process, whereby not all records are searchable right now. The ones I have been checking this morning (BST) are showing a date of either May 9 or May 10 against the Citation details. However, I just came across an example of a record that has not yet reappeared. as illustrated below. I have carried out checks from both the collection search page and from the main search page and this birth registration has still not reappeared.
I will carry out further checks later, but do fully expect more records will become available throughout the day, or possibly coming days. At least there do appear to already be many records that I can attach as sources to the relevant profiles!
Extract from GRO index results page
1 -
Here are the results from a general search. The individual of interest to me is the Ann Armstrong of Beverley, Yorkshire. As you can see, baptism records are found for her, but still no birth registration.
Again, many thanks for your help in resolving this issue.
0 -
FYI - Here's one that was not available when I wished to attach to his profile on 5 May but (as you can see) was restored to the database yesterday (9 May).
However, I just found that of two individuals named William Greengrass who had their births registered in Norfolk in 1859, one now appears in a search, but not the other! Clearly, the process does not appear to be alphabetical, or by county.
1 -
@Paul W I found a few yesterday that had been missing from my earlier searches. They still weren't showing by searching the specific collection or even type of record, but they did appear in a broad, general search, using only the names of the principals.
0 -
@SerraNola I've only just got round to checking the situation with Marriages and find there are still no England & Wales marriage registration records post 1861. I also carried out a check for the 1851-61 marriage registrations currently available on FamilySearch. There are just 6, compared to 67 listed at FreeBMD.
Hopefully, the whole process for getting these back online has begun, but - as I have found in my further searches for birth registrations - still a fair way to go before all these records are likely to be restored.
1 -
@Paul W I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I am going to defer a final answer as the numbers have been changing since I first checked and (incorrectly) confirmed that all was well with the missing indexes. They are currently removing the bogus death date from birth registrations and that should complete in a day or so. Then I suppose it will be round 2 for restoring permissions. Sorry that I jumped the gun on announcing that it was fixed!
3 -
When I tried to view a search results today from the England and Wales Birth Index, I got this message:
Does this indicate the collections are still under repair? public account.
1 -
@karenrasmussen I've been testing these all morning and the numbers are still changing, so yes it's still a work in progress. I believe the death dates (on birth registrations) are now fixed, although some still show up in the search database. However, the situation with permissions is not yet cleared up. Most records are now searchable but all show this error message with any account.
3 -
@Paul W @karenrasmussen and others,
I want to apologize for the delay in addressing this and provide an update, even though I don't yet have all the answers. I'm going to be out of town for the next three days and didn't want to leave this issue hanging:
England and Wales Birth Registration Due to contractual changes, this collection is now accessible only at a FamilySearch Center (FSC), Affiliated Library, or with an LDS account. Births after 1925 are restricted for everyone regardless of account type. You may still see over 30 million records appear in search results with a public account, but they cannot be opened. This occurred during migration and will eventually be removed.
England and Wales Marriage Registration The same access restrictions apply to this collection (FSC, Affiliated Library, or LDS account required). Currently, 3.3 million records still appear in search results, and those within privacy guidelines remain accessible. We are still awaiting final clarification on whether this is intentional, but likely it is not.
1921 England and Wales Census The same access restrictions described above also apply to this collection. Because the restrictions were applied gradually during a migration process, it may have appeared as though records were slowly disappearing in error. We understand this was frustrating and we're sorry for that experience.
I will post an update if new information becomes available. Thank you for your patience.
5 -
Thank you for your hard work @SerraNola and have a good break.
This is obviously very disappointing news (and presumably it will also affect DQS and hinting) but at least we now know where we stand. I'm thinking I'll perhaps add freebmd external sources to back up the FS E&W BMDs in my part of the tree.
2 -
Apologies if you are already aware of this, but it is important to add the FreeBMD link to the Sources section that will provide a direct link to the page showing the record, rather than to the FreeBMD Home page.
For example, I wanted to add the FreeBMD record for the 1921 birth registration of a Doris Johnson at Burton R.D.
I found the URL against this page just links to the Home page
Whereas pasting the URL for the page that opens when clicking on the page reference (718) does provide a direct link from her Sources section
I, too, will start to use these FreeBMD records as sources, just as I have done for quite some time in adding census records from its "sister" sites, FreeCEN and FreeREG, especially when records are unavailable at FamilySearch.
See Sources for PD5S-3B7 - I'll try adding FreeBMD sources for her two marriages next!
BTW - Isn't is great to find one can now go back and edit a post - like this - without the screenshots disappearing? Did that improved feature get added to Community within the last month?
(Note - post slightly edited from that originally placed a couple of hours ago)
4 -
Just to update a comment in my previous post
..I'll try adding FreeBMD sources for her two marriages next..
I just carried out that task successfully and the result illustrates how finding a marriage record (at FreeBMD) can point to there having been a previous marriage for a female individual. As the screenshot for the 2nd marriage shows, the marriage of Doris Johnson was registered / indexed in both her maiden name and that of her 1st spouse. The two versions of her name also appear against her 2nd spouse, of course:
The only long-term problem might be that the current URLs (direct links) to these FreeBMD records (and for those on other websites, of course) might not work at some stage in the future. Still, even FamilySearch links can become useless if records are withdrawn / become subject to restricted access: so I won't worry too much about that prospect for now.
4
