Genealogy Chat

I'm just wondering if anyone is a member of britishorigins.com? Is it any good?

Hello there I am using British Origins at the moment and have signed up for a month and have access to 1841 census which I have found very helpful. It does not include every area. Will check if you want to research a particular area. Lynda

I have a British Origins subscription. I like it for the 1841 census. I have interests in Somerset, Suffolk and Norfolk and all those counties are on British Origins. Cheers, Lynn

It is good for the 1841 census if the county you are researching in is on there. Havnt found all the other stuff very useful personally, but I suppose others might. Julie

I tried the 72-hour subscription and had no problems. The site is updated monthly. It's cheaper to take out a 72-hour subscription every month, just after the update, than it is to take out any other subscription.

I have taken out a subscription but haven't found it terribly useful. The 1841 census is okay if you are lucky enough to be interested in the counties that they have. You have to buy some of the records (and they are quite expensive!) as they are only indexed online and can't actually be viewed, but the indexes don't always give enough information for you to make up your mind whether they are the right ones before you buy them. For example, some of the marriage indexes only give the couples' surnames with no christian names.

Thanks for all the info, was thinking of subscribing but unsure of what counties I'm looking for.

British Origins has 18 counties on for the 1841 census's .. and is updated and added to each month. Currently available: Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, derbyshire, Devon Dorset, Essex, Glamorgan Gloucestershire Herefordshire Lincolnshire Monmouthshire Norfolk ... *cheers Lynn ! Nottinghamshire, Somerset Staffordshire Suffolk Warwickshire, Wiltshire Worcestershire. Mega value at £22.50 per year. It also has 1871 census's but since these are available on Ancestry, they aren't much use ! At present, loads and loads of people are freely offering 1841 lookups using these facilities without being unduly worried. Good Luck ..... I'd recommend it to anyone. With all the other census's being available on Ancestry, the two combined are an excellant source of information. Elaine ;-)

The quality of indexing, particularly for 1841, is very good. You do have to download a special viewer, but that's easy enough to do. The Apprentice tax indexes can prove very helpful indeed, as you can get father and son's name, plus village they came from, plus the trade and the name of the master, but they take a while to get used to because of the way the names are indexed (you have to look for Smythe under Smith etc)

Norfolk is on there too for 1841. :-) Cheers, Lynn

Their 72-hour sub is the best deal as this doesn't automatically renew (unlike the monthly or annual subs). Some members have complained on here that BritishOrigins didn't notify them when their sub was due, and simply took another month of subs, so if you do sign up then make sure that you keep track of when your sub expires and cancel in good time if you don't want to renew. Their release of the 1841 seems to be going very slowly - just one or two counties per month. Therefore, you will probably not need to subscribe every month, only when they put on a county of interest to you - another reason why the 72-hour sub is the way to go. My guess is that the whole of the 1841 will be on Ancestry before BO have finished theirs. I didn't find anything of interest in their other databases either, but you could get lucky. Richard