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The 1939 Register

MaggyC said:
Dad moved from the family home in 1984 and into a much smaller house
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As did my father in 1981 - but he still kept the address books (though I wish he'd told me about them when he was alive). He also kept some of the school work I did in the 1950s - it was a wonderful surprise when I discovered it in his loft. And the Kelly's directory for 1937 - it's fascinating comparing it with the 1939 Register.
 
peter said:
The first two are easily explained - take another look at my article about transcription errors.

The ED code wouldn't have been transcribed - it's meta data - so it's not a transcription error. And you can't search on it anyway, so it wouldn't matter if it was wrong or missing.

The last error is the only one for which the transcriber might be held responsible, but I'd need to see it to be sure. On the basis of what you've said it sounds as if the transcriber thought that Sea View was the name of the road, whereas it was actually the name of a house.

Thank goodness the poor transcribers have got me to defend them!
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1. The first is a stand-alone box with the original content deleted and a correction inserted. I would expect (from experience) to see the corrected data, possibly with a comment about the change.
2. The second is probably a "quality control" failure - also my bracketed comment alludes to your article, but omits explicit reference :(
3. The transcription includes the ED code (from the image), but calls it the "Letter Code". Only one of those I've seen has been null. I accept causing confusion from using the image "name".
4. The address column starts with "Mythfa Kittle" followed by house names, except for two schedules which just contain "Kittle" (7396e/004). It may be possible to deduce that Kittle is the village but ?

Phil
 
At last I can search the 1939 register properly. Unlike you wise people, I did buy credits to find all my own family - and no problems with transcription or other errors - all very straight forward. However I couldn't find my brother-in-laws missing Grandfather with the few credits I had left. Being able to do a 'proper' search for him took a while, but eventually I found him with (as suspected by the family) another woman.

From there I have found his second family and his eventual death. Some of his daughters are still alive and have lived with the mystery of what happened to him after he walked out on his wife of over 20 years and children in the early 1930's. So a long-standing brick wall demolished, how very satisfying!
 
SoT: As the register was updated for a long time, I wondered what (simple) mechanism could have been used and found http://www.1911census.org.uk/1939.htm outlining the Id card numbering:
Enumeration District (ED) Code (letter code on FMP), schedule number and sub-number
Example: XLFP 30/1

For births after the register was taken a scheme was used with a four letter code identifying the Birth Register (Registration Sub-district) and the entry number in the Register (as on the birth certificate)
Example: XRYE207

Obviously, letter codes will have changed at least once - the two examples relate to houses half-mile apart, with a birth registration in 1944.

Phil
 
peter said:
As did my father in 1981 - but he still kept the address books (though I wish he'd told me about them when he was alive). He also kept some of the school work I did in the 1950s - it was a wonderful surprise when I discovered it in his loft. And the Kelly's directory for 1937 - it's fascinating comparing it with the 1939 Register.
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I tell my wife often that our address book kept on a window ledge in the hall will be a treasure untold in the future. It is wholly maintained by my wife, with crossing out, amendments of address, phone and sometimes surname (when family marry/remarry). It is also stuffed full with pieces of paper with notations and assorted hieroglyphs which all mean something (to her) apparently.

I also endorse how wonderful it was finding my own father's address book and being able to get in touch with an adopted cousin (really a cousin but 'adopted' by virtue of the fact his mother, Dad's sister, was adopted by Grandma when she was a baby). It was wonderful to pinpoint his address and be able to write to him and re-discover him (and his wife) after so long. Then my wife's father's address book and discovering the all important surname of the Aunt she stayed with as a child, thus allowing me to research the family for her.

Address books are wonderful things but I just hope whoever interrogates ours in the future after we are both long gone, will be able to understand the logic of my wife's indexing and what the notes mean.
 
In a website I looked at to find the answer, Stoke-on-Trent actually came third! The first two were Society of Toxicology and Support our Troops. There was no mention on that particular site of what PhilGee meant, which I found on another, where it ranked fourth. I leave you in suspense.
 
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Well, well, well. The things you live and learn! Nice to think that Stoke-on-Trent and Sodankylä have something in common.
 
Gillian said:
There was no mention on that particular site of what PhilGee meant, which I found on another, where it ranked fourth. I leave you in suspense.
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Surely not 'seriously off topic' (or even 'slightly off topic') as it was neither of those. However thinking along these lines perhaps SoT meant "Staying on Topic"? If so delivering a little knock-knock to the address book postings, which I consider completely relevant and informative. Compared to postings of the past -and likely ongoing for that matter - where we have been known to digress to cause Moderators to create a new Heading, hardly worth a mention. Perhaps Phil will enlighten us as to the meaning of his SoT?
 
Keeping my fingers crossed that I haven't missed this in Peter's special newsletter, or in the 14 pages above, is there any way of telling if a record has been opened at the request of an FMP user since the register was released?

It occurs to me that this could be a way of discovering connected researchers - though I do appreciate that FMP can't just hand out private information about their subscribers.
 
As Bob suggested, slightly off topic, as I did not consider it directly relevant to the thread but an associated topic :rolleyes:

Bob Spiers said:
... that has not been easy with so much jargon
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What jargon? :D

I do tend to be somewhat terse - having been told at school "I wanted a precis not a precis of a precis"!

Phil
 
Pauline said:
Keeping my fingers crossed that I haven't missed this in Peter's special newsletter, or in the 14 pages above, is there any way of telling if a record has been opened at the request of an FMP user since the register was released?

It occurs to me that this could be a way of discovering connected researchers - though I do appreciate that FMP can't just hand out private information about their subscribers.
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There isn't but the number of records opened on request must be quite small compared to the total number of records that have been researched.

The best solution would be if all Findmypast users were to join LostCousins - and this is why I've started writing occasional articles for the Findmypast blog!
 
Pauline said:
Keeping my fingers crossed that I haven't missed this in Peter's special newsletter, or in the 14 pages above, is there any way of telling if a record has been opened at the request of an FMP user since the register was released?

It occurs to me that this could be a way of discovering connected researchers - though I do appreciate that FMP can't just hand out private information about their subscribers.
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I was wondering that just yesterday when I went looking for one of my half 2xgreat-aunts in the register (I'd found my 2g-grandmother living next door to her son when I wasn't looking for her - I thought she'd died in the 1920s and had sent a query to a cousin who'd told me that my 2g-grandmother, her daughter and granddaughter lived in the house together, I hadn't known of that particular extension at the time, so I went looking for the granddaughter's parents - the half 2xgreat aunt previously mentioned). She and her husband are listed, as are two of her children - one born in 1919 and the other in 1931, both of whom should be closed.

When I came across these two records, I wondered if someone had asked for those two records to be opened, since the family has two more records still closed, suggesting that there is another two children - one born before 1919 and the other born between 1919 and 1931 if the list is in age order - whose records are still closed. But then I also wondered if the two who are open died in the UK before 1991, which I think is the cut off for those who were born under 100 years ago whose records are opened.
 
jorghes said:
before 1991, which I think is the cut off for those who were born under 100 years ago whose records are opened.
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The cut-off date is probably 2007, as that's the last year for which the GRO death indexes have been published online.
 
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