We have appointed Richard Light to the position of chair at Free UK Genealogy. We are incredibly thankful to the outgoing chair Camilla von Massenbach for her great work.

Camilla von Massenbach, founder trustee of FreeBMD (the predecessor charity of Free UK Genealogy and Free UK Genealogy CIO), and chair since its beginning in 2002 has announced her resignation as chair.

Camilla together with Graham Hart, Ben Laurie and David Mayall – all still trustees – created the FreeBMD project in 1998. This was one of the first crowdsourced projects (the word ‘crowdsource’ didn’t get invented for another 8 years ) . Rootsweb noted at the time: ‘The FreeBMD project is expected to take forever probably, and the next 15 years certainly’. Camilla was part of the management team, and acted as Scan Coordinator.

Our progress under Camilla’s leadership

By 2013 – the most optimistic estimate for completion –  the project had reached the 1960s for births and marriages, and the early 1970s for deaths. Today, we approach the completion of the initial target of all registrations to 1983. FreeBMD has demonstrated beyond a doubt the need for free access to genealogical data. Our work has proved that a volunteer organisation can achieve this.

We started two other projects very shortly after FreeBMD. We added FreeCEN (which presents Census data) and FreeREG (which presents data from Church of England registers of baptism, marriage and burial, and similar sources) to the family. Subsequently, the charity changed its name from FreeBMD to Free UK Genealogy. This name reflects all three projects, and our wider aims to champion free access to historic documents.

Most recently, on 1st January 2017, the charity incorporated as Free UK Genealogy CIO. Camilla will continue to serve as a Trustee.

We have appointed a new Free UK Genealogy chair

For almost 20 years Camilla has been a thoughtful and supportive founder. She has led our visionary organisation to achieve truly remarkable results. I am pleased to say that Richard Light has agreed to be our next Chair. Richard has chaired the Policy Group within the charity for over a year, and has a particular interest in linked data. I look forwards to working with Richard in his new role, and continuing to work with Camilla.

Pat Reynolds

Executive Director, Free UK Genealogy CIO