Free LDS Account Access to Find My Past

tonyrand55

I realised yesterday that the soon to be released data from the 1921 census in England will only be available via 'Find My Past' so I set up a new account using the Family Search Partner Access which should have given me free access to view data on their site, but it doesn't, if I try to view data it still asks me to subscribe. 

Has anybody experienced the same issues and if so what was the solution?

Graham Buckell

@tonyrand55

I have no problems accessing data on FMP using my free access.

Two suggestions:

1. Try rebooting your computer
2. Check your FMP account. To do this click the three lines in the top right hand corner, go to My Account and click My Subscription. If you have signed up correctly it should look like below

If you are still stuck please repost.

Regards

Graham Buckell

A van Helsdingen

Be aware that you will still have to pay for the 1921 Census. Even subscribers to FMP still have to pay 90% of the normal rates (which are £2.50 for a transcript/index entry of a household, and £3.50 for the image).

Graham Buckell

A third suggestion is that you may have been trying to look at premium content that the free account does not give you access to.

tonyrand55

Thanks for the comments above, I've checked my FMP account and the subscription still shows as Pay As You Go but when I've tried numerous times to link accounts an error occurs which I've now sent back to FMP Support so I'll wait and see their response.

I wasn't aware of the fact that there is such a thing as Premium content, so what constitutes that?

I also wasn't aware that even with a paid subscription you would still have to pay to view the 1921 Census, I just assumed it would be like Ancestry where everything is available to view.

I presume the UK records office have been paid a lot of money by FMP for their rights to use it and they are now clawing that money back from the public. I can't say I'm happy about that, it can make Family History research expensive!

Graham Buckell

Hopefully FMP support will resolve your issue.

I am not entirely sure what constitutes premium content on FMP. I think that the free account is equivalent to what is termed Essential British & Irish whereas there is also Ultimate British & Irish. There is a comparison table but it explains nothing about the precise differences between the two.

Yes - as commented above, unfortunately you do have to pay extra for access to the 1921 census. I do not know how much FMP paid for the rights but I imagine that by far the majority of the cost was on paying those that transcribed the information. In time - but probably not for a few years - it is likely that census will become part of the other records. This is what happened with the 1911 census.

Also Ancestry works very much like FMP. There are different levels of membership and the free account does not give access to everything. Records that I cannot access include some international records and some military records.

A van Helsdingen

The National Archives (TNA) in Kew, London signed an exclusive deal with FMP. In exchange for paying for and being responsible for digitizing and indexing the census, they get up to 3 years exclusive rights to publish the census.

Paul W

@tonyrand55

You say: "... I can't say I'm happy about that, it can make Family History research expensive!"

This used to be only too true for me! Even without a subscription to any of the major websites I used to spend hundreds of pounds in my early days of research. Without any online records, I ordered films from SLC to be delivered to my Family History Centre here in London. The cost of that, together with obtaining scores of BMD certificates from the General Register Office, was expensive enough, but then I discovered (for certain, original records) I needed to visit record offices throughout England!

Genealogy is just a hobby for me - but it has proved a far from inexpensive one!