Tip for Using FreeReg to Search for Birth and Death Dates

FreeReg is an index to church parish registers in the British Isles.  It's a great resource for finding baptisms, marriages, and burials in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.  It can also aid in finding birth or death dates.

If searching baptisms hoping to find a birth date, you may well find one because both dates are sometimes recorded.  But it's important to remember that baptisms happened after a birth and not on the birth date.  And sometimes those baptisms happened several years after a birth.  When you put in the search years for a baptism, be sure to extend the date at least several years after the child was born.  

Burials usually happened within days of death so no need to extend the death year unless you don't know it. 

—Nancy.

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