RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Davedrave on Sunday 25 June 23 16:07 BST (UK)
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I have only just come across the postcode search feature on the CWGC website. I was initially impressed, but very soon I’ve realised that it probably contains a great many inaccuracies. For example, putting a postcode in I found a 1918 record where the soldier lived in Brook Street in my town (cleared away in the 1950’s) but the postcode search shows a property in Brook Road (several miles away and 1960’s or later).
At least that record shows the correct town. However, a civilian death in 1941, in Lewisham, London, shows a modern development in a street of the same name in a Midlands suburb! The road still exists in Lewisham, and most of the houses pre-date 1941, though a block has been rebuilt (the bomb-damaged ones?). The Midlands location is 100 miles away and dates from well after the war.
Another postcode search shows the wrong village suburb for another record. And these errors are out of only about ten records viewed so far.
I suspect that these errors are probably the tip of a very large iceberg.
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I've just tried a search using my postcode.
It gives me a result a few streets away in an Alexandra Crescent (Hexham).
The only problem is that the correct Alexandra Crescent was in Blyth, some 30 miles away.
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I have just tried this having not seen the postcode option before. It produced one result, a few streets away from me, and the entry was spot on :)
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I have just had a play with it and it seems utterly pointless to me. As has been said, the postcodes bring up fairly random places, or nothing at all. As most of the houses the soldiers lived in have long gone and postcodes were only invented in the 1970s(?), how is it supposed to work?
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My postcode produced one result which was spot on. The map that was attached showed 2 other records, the only thing wrong was they were linked to each others house in different roads but just a few hundred yards apart.
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Same for me too, Deirdre. - Just a short walk down the lane.
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It is showing those who died from your present area.
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Except that it doesn't!
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Except that it doesn't!
Totally agree -- as much use as a chocolate fire guard as my grandfather used to say.
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Just checked my postcode. Two soldiers from a street half a mile from me died in WW1.
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It is showing those who died from your present area.
Except that it doesn't!
Quite.
A large number of Hexham men died in the World Wars.
I have tried several Hexham postcodes, and they all give me the same man, Adam Telfer, said to be from Alexandra Crescent, Hexham. However it's clear from the inscription that that was his parents address, in Blyth, some 30 miles away.
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I was just trying to answer BumbleB’s query.
It obviously works for some people. The house is still there for the person I found . I am not sure how useful it is, other than those who are researching local history etc.
I tried it with my daughters postcode with similar results - plus a street view of the house.
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I think the problem with the incorrect result I got is that Alexandra Crescent in Blyth no longer appears to exist.
So it is sending me to the next nearest Alexandra Crescent, even though it's the wrong one.
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My first search was for a still-existing address (Victorian terraced housing) where an ancestor killed in 1918 lived. It was interesting to find that he was one of five from that smallish street who died, and gives an insight into the impact of the war on the communities where our ancestors lived. However, I think that there are likely to be so many records that are either missing or simply wrong that it is of very limited usefulness.
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Totally agree -- as much use as a chocolate fire guard as my grandfather used to say.
Chocolate fireguard was an expression my grandmother used to use. She was from York well known for chocolate manufacture
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Irrelevant - deleted
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I have now found a record which shows the correct location for a relative who died in 1918. It is the address given for his father on the CWGC certificate. However, there is no mention of his brother, who died the previous year, even though the address on his certificate is the same. So it seems yet another failing in this search facility.
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"It is the address given for his father on the CWGC certificate." This rather confirms my feeling that the information is already available from the CWGC site. Also it is the address of his father - he was probably living miles away before the War.
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"It is the address given for his father on the CWGC certificate." This rather confirms my feeling that the information is already available from the CWGC site. Also it is the address of his father - he was probably living miles away before the War.
The father was living very close to the pub he’d kept (presumably until he retired) which was then run by his daughter. Both sons were living at the pub in 1911 and (both single) may have still been living with their father when they joined up, so his address may have been theirs too. But what I was really questioning was why the record of only one of the sons is found through the postcode search. It is clearly an error.
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I give up - regardless of war memorials in every church, it seems there were only 2 war dead in this entire well populated rural postcode area. (**4 6, so quite a large area)
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Postcodes were rolled out nationally by 1974, but many people were reluctant to use them!
I remember working in IT in the 1980's, and trying to postcode all addresses in our database.
People living in London in particular hated the "new" postcodes, and efforts to make them compulsory in our database had to be abandoned. :-X
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If you go onto the search page, scroll down to additional information and put in the name of the road plus town/village it seems to work I just typed in "Carlton Grove, Peckham" and got a list of names.
Carolyn
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That’s much better Carolyn. Thanks.
That needs to be explained better on the site and there is this ‘ Questions or feedback on our new site? Contact us’ at the foot of the page.
I would think it has more specific uses. Not many people would want to search in their local area, perhaps.
I found the brother of the only one which showed as a result of the postcode search yesterday plus several others.
These include 2 men who were neighbours from a small terrace which I can see from our house.
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Glad it helped. I used it to find people who died in the area I am looking at for a one place study because trying to find war memorials in South London is a nightmare.