Delve into our treasure trove

As part of the Explore Your Archive campaign, which begins on Saturday 14 November, Free UK Genealogy is encouraging people to take the time to visit FreeBMD, FreeREG, FreeCEN to get free public access to family history records.

The Explore Your Archive campaign is encouraging people to discover the stories, the facts, the places and the people that are at the heart of our communities. Archives across the UK and Ireland are taking part to raise awareness of the value of archives to society and the rich variety of content that is held, preserved and made available to users.

While only a small percentage of material held in archives is available online, you can take part by exploring indexes of Births Marriages and Deaths, historic Parish Registers and 19th Century Censuses, free of charge from the comfort of your own home through our websites.

To find out more about the campaign and how you can start your own adventure visit http://www.exploreyourarchive.org/ or visit www.freebmd.org.uk, www.freereg.org.uk and www.freecen.org.uk

Over 300 Free UK Genealogy volunteers responded to a survey about communication in July, 2015.

This survey - and resulting actions - only covered internal communications. A second piece of work, looking at external communications, is planned for 2016.

Key Findings

Two-thirds of volunteers are happy with communication within Free UK Genealogy. A quarter would like more information to be shared, and concerns were aired about the lack of communication. 10% think things could be simpler or easier. Some people raised concerns about their own expertise, the bandwidth available in their location, and the cost of connectivity. A major concern was raised that there is no way for the Executive to communicate with all volunteers, and this will be addressed.

Currently, the most popular ways of receiving information about what is going on at Free UK Genealogy, and in communicating with others are Email lists and Direct Emails. Newsletters, dedicated forums, and the members' area of FreeREG2 are also used to a much smaller extent. Other means of communication are virtually unused.
Looking forwards, almost everyone is satisfied by emails (individual or group) or newsletters – so we will continue to use these, and look at making things simpler or easier for everyone. The use of forums was liked by others, as this enables them to see when a question has been answered and does not clutter their in-box. The development/enhancement of forums-with-email is therefore recommended. A very few people find none of these ways suitable for them. We'll look at ways of meeting their needs, too. One specific instance of a communications failure was given: we will work to minimise these in future.

The full report can be downloaded (pdf).

Are you a volunteer for Free UK Genealogy? If so, we want to hear from you!

Please fill in a short survey: http://goo.gl/forms/iC6QhoLgJi

Free UK Genealogy is pleased to introduce our new Executive Director – Pat Reynolds. We welcome her and look forward to working closely with her.

Some of you may know Pat from her previous role as Surrey's Heritage Manager, and her work at Surrey History Centre and on 'Exploring Surrey's Past' – the first website to integrate and co-present data from museums, archives, libraries and a historic environment
record. She can be contacted at pat.reynolds@freeukgen.org.uk.

Camilla von Massenbach,
Trustee