National Burial Index

The National Burial Index (NBI) is a database of entries recorded in English and Welsh burials registers - parish, nonconformist, Roman Catholic, Quaker and cemetery.

General
The National Burial Index (NBI) compliments the International Genealogical Index (IGI) (which is mainly a searching aid to births/christenings and marriages). The NBI 3rd edition contains over 18.4 million names of people buried in England and Wales between 1538 and 2008. It is compiled by the Federation of Family History Societies, with the first edition having been released in 2001, and the second edition in 2004. The intention is to produce a cumulative edition at around three yearly intervals.

The NBI contains entries from over nine thousand parish, non-conformist and cemetery burial registers. Coverage however varies considerably from county to county and from period to period.

Information Provided
Information for each individual includes:


 * Forename(s) and surname
 * date of burial
 * age (where given, generally post-1813)
 * details of place where the event was recorded; pre-1832 county definitions are used
 * the recording society, group or individual

No monumental inscriptions or death registrations are included.

Caution:


 * Always check out the original source.
 * The National Burial Index is exactly what it says - an INDEX. It should be used in conjunction with other research. Wherever possible the original source (or a copy of it) should be examined.
 * Patchy coverage.
 * Coverage in the third of the NBI varies significantly from county to county and from period to period. For more details view the NBI 3rd Edition map and coverage tables

Access
The National Burial Index is provided on CD-ROM. It can be ordered (at a cost of £30+P&amp;P) from the GENfair online bookshop. Many Record Offices and Local Studies Centres have the NBI loaded onto their computers. It is also available for online searching at Findmypast.com.

Upgrades
An upgrade price is available for purchasers of the 2nd Edition. The special price for this upgrade is £15. It can ONLY be bought by returning Disk 1 of the original 2nd edition set to FFHS Services Ltd. This restriction is necessary to ensure that only genuine copies are upgraded. There is no 3rd edition upgrade available for NBI Edition One.

System requirements
You'll need a PC running Windows XP / Vista / 7 (32 or 64 bit), with at least 2.8Gbytes of free disk space and a CD or DVD drive.

The NBI is unfortunately not suitable for Apple Macs due to copy-protection applied to the disk. This includes both a Mac emulating Windows, and an Intel based Mac running Windows as a dual boot option.

Associated Original Sources
See Parish Registers, Non Parochial Registers or Burial Records for guidance onto how to access the source record associated with an NBI index entry.

External link

 * NBI third edition, Family History Federation website