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8. Historic records and record matching

Historic Records

Findmypast works with a number of trusted third parties to bring you millions of historical records to assist you with your family history research. A full list of our partners is available on the Our Partners page on our website. Historic records on the site are reproduced under a third party agreement with licensors or we reproduce records that are within the public domain. We will continue to host these records as long as we retain an agreement with the licensor or as long as they are within the public domain.

You will find information about living individuals in some of our records. Examples of these records include civil birth and marriage indexes, electoral registers, the Companies House register, and more. The records we hold which contain the names of living people are public record and we provide the data based on our legitimate interest. In the examples, the records have been made public by the General Register Office or the Electoral Register. Records of living individuals allow users to build their family tree and research their family history from the current generation.

If you have any questions about these records, please contact our customer support at support@findmypast.com. We will remove records of living people if it is requested by the individual named in the record. If you want to be removed from the UK Electoral Register records you will need to contact 192.com, who we use to access these records.


Record matching

Findmypast uses record matching technologies to suggest possible matches between historical records on Findmypast and associated partner trees on Family Historian or Roots Magic, family tree building software.

Record matching on Findmypast automatically matches historical records for your family tree. These records are pulled from our vast records database. Record matching will save you time with your research and allow you to make fascinating discoveries through historical records such as birth, marriage and death documents and census records.

When record matching is enabled within partner sites such as Family Historian, Roots Magic, or other Desktop Software partners, information from small parts of your family tree is passed between the sites without you having to do anything, to a matching service on the Findmypast website. This information includes basic information such as names, dates and places associated with individuals and their close relatives. Findmypast uses this data to find accurate matches for relevant individuals. The matching service provides partner site users with suggested matches of ancestors’ birth, marriage, and death records. We will also provide matches for census records. As a Findmypast customer, you can then add these records to your tree. The service will match against living relatives.

Please note this information is not retained by Findmypast and is deleted automatically after matches are calculated and displayed to you. Only partner site users receive Findmypast hints. Findmypast users do not receive hints about trees on the partner site.

The partner site will show matches in its search window where matches are found. To find out more about these matches, follow the links provided and review them. You will then be able to accept or reject matches. Please note that some matches can be viewed and confirmed for free, while others require a Findmypast data subscription. In order to review these matches, you will need to subscribe to Findmypast and create an account.

The information passed to Findmypast is never used for any other purpose and will never be displayed, sold, licensed or used in any manner whatsoever. If you have any question or concerns, you can email support@findmypast.com or call Customer Support on +44(0)20 3326 6300 [UK, IE, AU]; +1 (855) 246-8234 [US].

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