Find My Past – I’m Tryin’

I’m finally making the big move – the one where I pay for a subscription to www.FindMyPast.co.uk .  It is an expensive proposition to search on this site, that is, to view the transcriptions and images of genealogical records.  I’m especially interested in the British Parish Records.  In 2007 I opted for the 6.95 pound limited search (like 10 records), but that didn’t last long, so this time I want the 69.95 pound subscription for six months.  Woo is me though, I’m all fired up to start my Hague, Rees, Pearce, Barker, Walters, Williams research, but my charge on Visa didn’t go through.  It had to go through the Visa Verification process, something new for me, which asked me for a User Name and Password.  Where would I have gotten that????  It wasn’t the one for FindMyPast.  So I wrote an email to the FMP customer service, but they don’t work on the weekends.  Isn’t it always night when you want to contact businesses and they are closed?  Living in Hawaii and trying to contact England is a time zone nightmare (so to speak).

   In the morning I received an automated telephone call from Visa Verification asking if I’d tried to make a purchase.  I punched in the key for Yes on the phone, answered a few more questions, and it said I was cleared to make the purchase and to contact the vendor.    Well, by that time it was Friday night in England… so now I’ll have to wait until next week to jump into Find My Past… .I emailed them again to question if I should attempt another subscription purchase, or would the first try still work.  I think I’ll try telephoning them with Skype late Sunday night, my time.  So confusing, for something simple.  I never seem to have much luck making purchases online to England.

   I tried to make a credit card purchase for a record at the Tameside area records (Lancashire, England) but, at least a year ago, they weren’t set up for credit cards, and that office was the only ones that had the particular Hague birth records I was wanting.   They only accept Sterling cheques or International Reply Coupons through obtained through the post office, and it is ridiculously expensive.  Civil Registration in England and Wales began on July 1^st, 1837, and I’m looking for birth records of Ann, Elizabeth, Edward and John Hague – all born around Dukinfield, Cheshire between 1831 and 1837.   Luckily I have a Rees cousin near Manchester who has volunteered to go to the Tameside office and get the records if found, so I plan to do that when I get myself organized.

It's a lot easier for the children born after Civil Registration started as those are available from the GRO website and they take credit card payments online. This (above) is one I received for Mary Ann Hague who was born 8 Sep 1844.