As you may have already heard, we’ve tweaked our World Cup offer slightly to ensure that all of you receive the best possible service: whenever England play a match you will be able to access findmypast.co.uk for free for 90 minutes.

All you have to do is make sure you’ve registered on the site (unless you’re already registered in which case there’s no need to do so again) and choose your 90 minutes between 9am Friday 18th June and 9am Saturday 19th June (UK time).

England will play Algeria this evening at 7.30pm - it’s up to you whether you choose to take your 90 minutes of free browsing when England play!

Here’s the competition question we’d like you to answer for the second part of the competition. Search our birth records to find the answer:

How many first names was Ann Pepper, born in West Derby in the Jan/Feb/Mar quarter of 1883, given?

The prize: a digital camera, vouchers for a year’s Full subscription plus more family history prizes.

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.

With the next England match just around the corner, we’re warming up to provide further entertainment for any non-football fans in the form of our second World Cup widows offer:

90 minutes free access to findmypast.co.uk at a time of your choice on the day that England play – when England play, you still don’t pay!*

How to get free access

• Make sure you are registered on the website before midnight (UK time) on the day before the match. If you have already registered, you do not need to do this again.
• Return to findmypast.co.uk at a time of your choosing between 9am (UK time) on the day of the match and 9am (UK time) the day afterwards.
• Once you have signed in, you will have 90 minutes to search and view the records for free.

The free 90 minutes are available as a continuous period and will begin the moment you sign into findmypast.co.uk between the times stated above. If you’re not in the UK, you can convert the UK times above into local time here. A listing of the scheduled England matches is available here.

Our World Cup Widows offer for the second England match is now much more flexible, particularly for those of you based outside of the UK. You are now able to use the records at findmypast.co.uk at a time that suits you. We’ve been working hard to improve the speed of the site after the overwhelming popularity of our first offer so that even more customers will be able to benefit from it.

Visit our World Cup page for more information. If you need a helping hand with your research, take a look at our video tutorials or our Getting Started page which provide advice and tips about using our records.

We’d love to hear about any discoveries you make while our records are free to view - post anything you’d like to share with us and our readers on our Facebook page.

*All records available using our Full subscription (including the 1911 Census) will be free: Living Relatives searches and Memorial scrolls are not included.

First of all, apologies to all of of you who experienced a slow site during Saturday’s first England match: we were slightly overwhelmed by the response. But like the England team, we are now in hard training to make the second part a much more satisfying experience!

Although it’s great to hear that many of you found some nuggets during the free period, we’re working on a plan to make sure that everybody (especially our subscribers) get the normal, fast findmypast experience for the second match this Friday evening. And we’re also plotting ways to make sure that those based overseas don’t have to set their alarm clocks for strange hours to take part.

Keep an eye on this blog for more news, but if you haven’t registered yet, please do so now!

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.

With the World Cup starting today, we’ve done some research into the wives and girlfriends (WAGS) of footballers from today and 1911. We wanted to know how different these women’s lives are and if there are any similarities at all.

WAGS of 2010

Our research found that Cheryl Cole is the most popular WAG in the UK, with almost a fifth of the population voting her as their favourite. Here are the top five WAGS:

1. Cheryl Cole
2. Louise Redknapp
=3. Coleen Rooney
=3. Christine Bleakley
5. Victoria Beckham

Victoria Beckham’s family history - Liverpool roots

Relative old-timer Victoria Beckham only made fifth place in our survey, but she has an interesting family history. She has strong links to London, Brighton and Liverpool. Victoria’s maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Akehurst, can be found living with his parents, Victoria’s great-great-grandparents Walter and Mary Akehurst, in Islington, London in the 1901 census. Here you can see their 1901 census return:

The Akehursts on the 1901 census

Victoria’s great-great-grandfather Walter was born in Liverpool and they had moved to London from Brighton where four of their children were born. Their house was home to 13 people - Thomas, his parents, five siblings, grandmother, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, nephew and uncle - who lived in just eight rooms. Thomas was employed as a tobacconist’s assistant in 1901 while his father, Walter, was working as a coffee house keeper with his wife as his assistant.

Going back further to 1861, Victoria’s maternal great-great-grandfather Joseph Edward Feasey, aged one, can be found living with his parents, Victoria’s great-great-great-grandparents, Henry and Ann Feasey, in Holborn, London. Henry Feasey was employed as an undertaker while Ann was a carpet bag handle maker.

WAGS of 1911

Unsurprisingly, the life of a 1911 WAG seems to have been a lot less glamorous. Wives were often listed as having jobs such as power loom weaver, shop assistant, photographer’s assistant or travelling saleswoman.

The closest comparison we found is that the wives often followed their husbands to the club their husbands played for. The records show that they lived in relative comfort - in houses with a good number of rooms - but this is where the comparisons stop.

The footballers, who often played for their country, did not always record their profession as ‘footballer’ in the censuses. They were listed as having other occupations, such as clerks, which suggests that they needed to supplement their footballer wages - something that definitely could not be said of today’s footballers.

The 1910/11 season saw Bradford City win the FA cup (or English Cup, as it was then known). The FA Cup was won by a single goal scored by Jimmy Speirs for Bradford at Old Trafford. Speirs, his wife and child had all been born in Glasgow, relocating to Bradford for his football career. At the time of the 1911 census, the family lived in a spacious five-roomed house. Here you can see their 1911 census return:

The Speirs' 1911 census return

The 1911 WAG in this case was Elizabeth (Bessie) Lennox Maben who married Speirs in Glasgow on 24th October 1906 at the ages of 18 and 20 respectively. Bessie was a photographer’s assistant and she went on to have two children: James Hamilton Speirs in 1907, and Elizabeth Maben Speirs in 1912.

Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch (aged 29 on the 1911 census) was an English football player in the early 20th century for Newcastle United and later on he became manager of Bradford City. Veitch’s wife was Minnie Gertrude Paulsen, aged 30 in 1911 and at that time she had no children. In the 1911 census his family are recorded as living in a house with five rooms and three residents and on the night of the census they also had a visitor, a Miss Mable Warwick:

The Veitch family on the 1911 census

Veitch is recorded as the only breadwinner in the family. He describes himself as ‘professional footballer’ on the 1911 census form working in the ‘football’ industry. His wife was not listed as employed.

Our marketing manager, Debra Chatfield (pictured right), said:

‘The 1911 census is an amazing resource for not only searching our own family history but for getting a snapshot of British social history. The 2010 World Cup will no doubt have most of the world going football mad and our research gives you a glimpse into the lives of those that made the game what it has become today.’

Don’t be a World Cup widow - when England play, you don’t pay! All our records are free to view during every England match. Find out more information on our World Cup page.

We’re giving all you World Cup widows (and widowers!) something to do during the World Cup: all the records* on findmypast.co.uk will be completely free to view whenever England play a match. 30 minutes before every England game kicks off, findmypast.co.uk will be free for 3 hours.

All you need to do to view all our family history records for free is register on the site as you’ll need to log in to view our records.

You’ll find a competition question to answer during each England match here on the blog. The prize is a goodie bag containing a digital camera, vouchers for a year’s Full subscription plus much more. England play their first match against the USA at 7.30pm on Saturday evening, so keep an eye on our blog on Saturday for the first competition question.

Visit our World Cup page for more information about this amazing offer.

*All records available using our Full subscription (including the 1911 Census) will be free: Living Relatives searches and Memorial scrolls are not included.

An amazing World Cup-themed offer is coming your way very soon…stay tuned for full details!