1. Try this example first and then search for your own ancestors.  Click on this link which will open in another window: http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl
   
   I selected marriages and filled in Charles first and surnames and limited the search to Chesterfield in the query form as shown below.  I noted the query in a Word document.  I then clicked on Find (towards the bottom left). freebmd output the list which follows. 

2. I hit the PrtScn key on the keyboard.  This copies the screen image to the clipboard.  Start up any software that you have for picture edting, such Paintshop Pro, Office Picture Manager etc.  and click the left button of your mouse over it.  Select Paste.  Most software will place the file in My Documents/My Pictures folder unless you tell it otherwise.  You can now crop the image like I have done and then export it in jpeg format (which uses less space on your computer).  It is simplest to exit the image editing program and move the jpeg file to where your family tree project is.  Create a folder called jpegs and keep all the pictures there with distinctive file names. You can then import the image into a Word document (like I have done here) by clicking on the Insert option on the Task Bar and selecting Picture/From file option.  Find the file and select it.  You can then click on it and re-size it by dragging the corners to suit your style.

3.  I went back to the original freebmd results page and clicked on page number 811 for the 1884 marriage of Charles Millington.  I only looked at the first two marriages listed since I knew that the second of his two marriages took place before 1904, when Pollie was born.  The information from the pages for the first two marraiges are listed below.  The tables list all the people who got married in Chesterfield in the specified quarter of the given year.
   
   This time I selected the relevant part of the output as you would with a word processor and copied it using Ctrl+C.  I then pasted it in this document. 

I then added these notes. 

Charles’ 1^st wife must have been one of the 3 ladies.  I had never heard the family mention Savage or Wornes.  So, the chances were that he married Hannah Maria since my friend had said that they lived next to the Needhams, who were related to her father but not her mother. 

Harriett Meads was Pollie's mother since she knew her name.  I had initially searched for Harriot Meads (the spelling I was given) and got no results.  I then searched for H Meads and got both her birth and marriage dates.  However, sometimes even the initial may not find the data.  For example, later in the search, I could not find Hannah Millington, mother of Charles. in the 1871 census. This was because the enumerator had written down Anna; the writing was difficult to read on the folio and the name could have been easily transcribed as Emma.

4. I went back to the query form (see step 1) and searched for the birth of Jack Millington, Pollie's eldest brother.  There were no results.  I then searched for Harry Millington’s birth in the Chesterfield District.  There were 3 boys born with that name and at this stage they were all candidates.  Freebmd does not give you much more information on them and the correct person can be identified by:

a.  Eliminating unlikely candidates by checking the date of the mother’s death. 

b.  Checking the census records

c.  Checking the bmd details in the County Registrar’s Office where the information is  lodged.

It is satisfying to see the records of people you are looking for come up in your initial searches.  But, you may find the wrong person because of variations in spellings, pet names as opposed to given names etc.   For example, I could not find Jack because he was actually christened John as I found eventually from the census records. 

But freebmd was sufficient for solving another puzzle.  Pollie always signed herself as Mary.  Her daughter Margaret said that Pollie's granddad did not like the name Mary and so the family had called her Pollie.  Only her youngest sister, her husband and her in-laws called her Mary.  In fact, I had not heard her called Pollie until we attended her 100th birthday celebrations.  Within a couple of days of using freebmd, I found that the birth of Pollie (not of Mary) was registered for the Dec quarter of 1904.  Using various resources I eventually established that Pollie's maternal and paternal granddads had died long before Pollie's birth.  So, it looks like Pollie's father-in-law (Margaret's granddad, who was said to be a dominant head of household) must have asked her to use the name Mary (of which Pollie is a diminutive).  So, despite its limitations, freebmd is a valuable corroborative resource.

5. Coverage:

Later, when I found the names of Pollie's grandparents - John and Hannah Millington - in census records, I tried to get bmd details using freebmd.  When it could not find any results, I re-read the  freebmd home page and followed the links to http://images.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/choose.pl

If you click on Births, the coverage graphs show that they have not got very far with transcribing birth data for the earlier part of the 19th century.  Remember that this excellent service is provided by a charity which relies on volunteers for transcribing data.

When you are more certain about the place and year of birth of your ancestor you can check that there have been no transcription errors by inspecting the scanned images in the freebmd archive.  Click on the IMAGES option in the main page.  Please note that you may only use the images for your own personal research.
 

Freebmd screenshots: Used with permission from Dave Mayall, General Manager for Freebmd