Throughout the World Cup, all the records* on findmypast.co.uk will be completely free to view whenever England play a match. England will play the USA this evening at 7.30pm so from 7pm to 10pm tonight findmypast.co.uk will be completely free.
Here’s the competition question we’d like you to answer for the first part of the competition. Our census records will help you:
What was the recorded occupation of William Matt, aged 36, living in Easthampstead, Berkshire in the 1911 census?
This next bit won’t get you any extra points, but if you can tell us the meaning of William’s occupation we’ll be very impressed!
The prize: a digital camera, vouchers for a year’s Full subscription plus much more.
Keep your eye on the blog for a competition question to answer each time England play. For a chance to win the prize, send us your answers to all the competition questions when England get knocked out of the competition - we’ll give you details of how to enter then. Remember to make a note of your answer to each part of the competition – you’ll need to send us your answers in one bundle after England get knocked out.
You have until 12 July to send us your answers and there can only be one winner. We’ll pick the winner at random from the entries that contain all of the correct answers - the judge’s decision is final. We’ll publish the winner on our blog on 13 July along with the answers to the questions.
Good luck!
*All records available using our Full subscription (including the 1911 Census) will be free: Living Relatives searches and Memorial scrolls are not included.
This is a great idea - too great.
I’m a subscriber, and I can’t get onto your site tonight. You’ve obviously been inundated. My husband is thoroughly enjoying himself in front of the box, and this football widow is now thoroughly frustrated.
This just goes to show the latent demand there is for your records. If you reduced your subscriptions slightly, you might pick up more subscribers.
Yes - it’s a great idea to promote the site in this way -and also a great way to stress-test the FindMyPast servers! 
I would also like to see changes to the subscriptions; specifically, I’d like to see monthly subscriptions re-introduced. Minimum 6-month subscriptions are way too long, and thus too much money for a lot of people to afford - expecially if they can’t spend 6 months doing research to make the most out of it. You will indeed pick up more subscribers doing this.
This was agreat idea I have given up now after trying since 7 praps give a reduced subscription offer to all those you emailed and encouraged with your offer.
Disappointed.
The offer is great, thank you, but…
1 hour of waiting for 1 search to respond?
Disappointing not to be able to get on to the free world cup site.
As I thought , too good to be true.
Well, as much as I appreciate the kind gesture on behalf of FMP and thank them for same, methinks they did not give appropriate consideration to the volume of interested persons that would want to avail of the free offer, and increase their server capacity etc., accordingly.
Now, they say patience is a virtue, and usually I am patient when it comes to family history research, but even my patience has been tried tonight. As others have posted, similarly my hubby and children are enjoying watching the football, whilst I am somewhat frustratedly trying to perservere with a rather annoying and extremely slow FMP website.
My long standing hobby of family history, for which I have paid out a lot of money in the pursuit of information in the past, was to have a ‘bonus’ tonight, when some information was to be had , for a time, for free, as well as my being able to see for myself, exactly how the FMP site worked and what records were available, etc.
Perhaps some will say it is wrong to gripe when receiving something for free, but on this occasion, I feel the gripe is justified.
Poor show, FMP. It was obvious to many on the various family history websites/forums over the past day or so that the offer would be taken up by many…..pity it wasn’t obvious to those running same.
Scotmum….nothing is free!! After an hour and a half I got logged in. Tried a couple of searches but kept being told I needed credits. Went back to the email and read “all records available using our full subscription will be free.”
Yet another badly thought through and under resourced piece of marketing that has satified noone … particularly your PAYING!!! customers.
The idea was right FMPm but not thought through.
Being overseas I had to set my alarm for 4.30am (which I was happy to do) and even went to bed early to be ready for the exciting 3 hours on FMP. 5.50am now and I am still yet to see a record 
Not worth going back to bed so I will keep trying.
Great idea, but been trying to get past sign in for one and half hours, finally got past it, then another 30 minutes to find something. Now it says I have to pay to view, it is the 1841 census. Was this only for those in England? I live in the US, but get your newsletter and have used your site previously. Disappointing.
Have been trying since 7pm, 9.18 now and have received ONE transcription for my troubles. Cancelled arrangements for this. World Cup night and I’m sitting alone while rest of the family has gone out. Nice one FMP.
2 hours and 50 minutes and have not seen a single record! Lots of variations of rejections though. Very dissappointed - what a total waste of time!
Right up to the final minute, can’t access it.
spent three hours tonight total waste of time.I think paying customers with credits [like myself] should have had priorty.Disappointing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Three hours is one hundred and eighty minutes. I managed to view ten records, three of which were relevant. That’s nearly twenty minutes per item. Many, many times I managed the gauntlet of “unable to connect” or “try again”, only to find the images were blank! I had a subscription with you guys a few years ago. I let it lapse for much the same reasons as today.
I set the alarm for 4am (Melbourne time) and was pretty chuffed to come out with 12 images by 7am. Yes, it was very slow and there were many “error - report to webmaster” screens, but generous use of the back, reload and F5 button usually got me through to what I sought.
Thank you for your generous offer to those of us who haven’t yet subscribed. For those who have a subscription - I am amazed you even tried to get on during this time.
Here’s an idea - how about free access to Aussies when the Aussies are playing, free to Brazil when they are playing, free to England when they are on, etc.
If this thread is a statistical measure of the success of your freebie offer…well….perhaps you should rethink them in the future. If it was meant to be a measure of how many potential customers you’d have if the price was right then yes it’s a tremendous success. Why not just give a few complimentary credits to everyone who has registered so we can utilize them when convenient and not overload your system? It just might work.
You have seen that the interest is there, now why not capitalise on it by allowing people to subscribe on a monthly basis, as Ancestry do. Many of us cannot afford to subscribe for a whole year, but would happily pay for a month’s access.
I totally agree. I subscribe to Ancestry all the time for one month periods on and off to suit my lifestyle. When I have a busy month I don’t subscribe, but when quieter, I subscribe and spend time doing family history research. Ancestry make a lot of money from me. Six month minimum subscriptions are way too long. I would also happily pay for a monthly subscription, and would do so often.
I signed in during the Slovenia game and could only access my 1911 subscription records - nothing else. So much for everything being free for 90 minutes….
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