1939 Register

[Emmyw]

Apologies if this discussion has already been covered. I am curious to know why so many dead people are still locked on the 1939 Register. I would have thought that there would be some sort of automatic unlocking for births say up until 1900?? I am trying to do a little preparation before I get myself a one month sub to look up the register, but I am finding that I have people born in the 1860's who are locked, for example.
Regards
Emmyw

 

[Tim]

Hi Emmy,

I'd be surprised if someone born in 1860 was locked in 1939. It would make them nearly 80.

Do you have some names we could look at?

 

[Emmyw]

Hi Tim

The following are some of the entries I have copied, and the message I get:

Hopkins Edward 1866 1939 Register Newbury M.B., Berkshire, England
Cameron David A 1876 1939 Register Coulsdon and Purley U.D., Surrey, England
Hopkins Jane 1881 1939 Register Banstead U.D., Surrey
Breach Florence A 1895 1939 Register Bradfield R.D., Berkshire
Baster Charles 1908 1939 Register Edmonton M.B., Middlesex, England
Bell Peter 1913 1939 Register St Pancras, London, England

Unlock this household
The records for all the people in this household are officially closed, as everyone is either still alive, or not confirmed to have died.
If you believe you have evidence to the contrary, please help and make a request to update the record.

This is different to the norm where presumably some of the household is unlocked, such as this one

Teal Household
Highworth R.D., Wiltshire, Eng
FIRST NAME(S) LAST NAME(S) YEAR OF BIRTH
Elsie E Wyatt (Teal) -
Thomas W ? Teal is also on this record
1 more person who is officially closed

Thank you for your help.
Emmy

 

[PhilGee]

Emmy,

Just had a quick look at David Cameron and Elsie Teal - both are shown fully on the transcriptions/images. Unfortunately, there is an ink spill with the Teals, but it is just possible to see the data.

There is one hidden entry for the Teals (child?) and David Cameron is in a hospital, so probably the only relevant person for you.

Phil

 

[Bob Spiers]

Emmy, apart from the first name in your list (Edward Hopkins - a Shepherd) and the last (Peter Bell - a Policeman) the others all appear to be hospital patients but NONE show as locked (i.e. redacted), which I thought was the point you were making? As PhilGee says, they are shown fully in both transcription and original image.

Perhaps I have misunderstood or is it just as simple as you being denied the information because you have yet to take out a Sub?

 

[Tim]

Edward Hopkins is also a patient in Newbury District Hospital.

I think Emmy the bit you've missed here is that this is not their home and other unrelated people have been redacted due to their age.

 

[peter]

Locked is not the same as Closed. See my special 1939 Newsletter.

 

[Emmyw]

Thank you to everybody for all of your help while I was blissfully in the land of nod!! I am definitely getting the picture, and looking forward to getting a sub soon - sorry I didn't think to look at the 1939 Newsletter before.

 

[DavidF]

I've recently been looking at trying to fill in some missing information for records previously 'officially closed' on the 1939 Register but where I have a pretty good idea who the person is. These are people born before 1925 (ie over 100 years old and therefore not required to be closed) or that I know their death date.
I have noticed two things:
1. As I know others in the same household, I already have their Letter Code (or Enumeration District) and Schedule No. By using only these as the search criteria, with both the Exact flags turned on, I get just the family group - which will show any newly un-redacted records - this avoids any potential transcription errors in names. I've been using Ancestry for this search method but I imagine that FindMyPast will have the same facility.
2. Having no success at Ancestry, I thought I'd try the same technique at MyHeritage BUT it doesn't have this capability - so I searched using my missing name (born in 1922). My complete surprise, I found the missing the record. It was marked "<Private> This record is officially closed" BUT then provided the full Name, Birth, Marital Status and Occupation details for this person.
Also when researching the 1939 Register I visited the National Archives site which stated that Ancestry is slower to update their records once they are released and that MyHeritage does NOT have images.

 

[peter]

The next step is to check whether the record is open at Findmypast - you don't need a subscription to search.

 

[DavidF]

I have now checked FindMyPast (where I don't have a Subscription) and YES it is showing people that I found marked 'closed' at MyHeritage - without any indication they are closed.
Also during my testing at MyHeritage I found that there are numerous people that are still marked as 'closed' with birth dates prior to 1925. These are also not visible at FindMyPast - which unfortunately doesn't show whether there are any 'closed' records for a household without a Subscription.

 

[jorghes]

My grandmother (born 1915, died aged 50 in 1965) is a case like yours - she can be "found" in the records for the 1939 Register at FindMyPast, but if you look at the actual record, her entry is closed. Her half sister (who can't be found on the index - born 1929, died 2012) is visible on the actual record.

I have always thought that one of the reasons my grandmother's record is not visible is that she died in Australia, after emigrating in the 1940s. But because her record is semi-closed, she can't be found on the Ancestry index. Her husband, my grandfather (born 1909, died in Adelaide in 1988) is visible in the records on both Ancestry and FindMyPast (presumably because he was already over 100 when the records were released, although ironically, my grandmother, who was born in April 1915, would have been too, but only by a couple of months).

 

[peter]

without any indication they are closed

Closed records shouldn't show up in searches.

My grandmother (born 1915, died aged 50 in 1965) is a case like yours - she can be "found" in the records for the 1939 Register at FindMyPast, but if you look at the actual record, her entry is closed. Her half sister (who can't be found on the index - born 1929, died 2012) is visible on the actual record.

It sounds as if the transcription was linked to the wrong part of the image. You can ask for the closed entry to be opened.

 

[peter]

I have now checked FindMyPast (where I don't have a Subscription)

Why did you subscribe to MyHeritage rather than Findmypast - was it for their world records? When I looked through the list of UK records at MyHeritage they didn't seem to have any that aren't found at either Ancestry, Findmypast, or both.

 

[DavidF]

Several years ago I got a significant discount on the MyHeritage subscription forever as long as I continue