Preview search tips for the 1939 Register before you buy

[chris_49]

Apart from the advanced search options, such as occupation which CarolA3 mentioned, and the free preview now gives the name of another person in the household (assuming that there is one), which wasn't included before.

Well, sometimes. At home, I get the extra person (the HoH, unless your search is for the HoH, when you get person number 2.) But if I'm on at the library, that doesn't happen. Go figure.

Also some mystifying households. One has a man born 1931, who died before 1991, plus five redacted. If these are his 5 known siblings, the oldest was 12 in 1939! Their parents, born in the 1900s, are not found there or anywhere! It's only because I had piece and item number that I found that Granny and their youngest aunt are very near, that I made any sense of it. Paying to open the first-named household would tell me almost nothing.

[clairec666]

Bear in mind that if the year of birth has been mistranscribed, there will be redacted records which shouldn't be redacted, and vice versa. This would make some households appear confusing!

[ReadyDale]

Bear in mind that if the year of birth has been mistranscribed, there will be redacted records which shouldn't be redacted, and vice versa. This would make some households appear confusing!

My aunt is mistranscribed in that it shows her year of birth as 1860, but strangely with the correct day and month. When I saw her earlier in the year she was looking good for 155 
Thankfully though, this meant she was not redacted from the index, which meant I could identify where she, my Nan (mistranscribed name) and my Dad (redacted) were evacuated to - it had my aunt's name and her later married name. Having bought the image, I found the 1860 date was for the person below, from the next household. Also, in the image, my aunt was correctly redacted.

[CarolA3]

On address searches, I've seen 'Off High Street' and 'Back of High Street' - guaranteed to mislead those looking for just plain High Street.

In Liverpool CB there's 'Woolton R', 'Woolton Road', 'Woolton Road, Liverpool' and 'Woolton Road, Lpool'.  All the same road.

I now put * before and after my search terms

Carol (not getting second person's name) 

[clairec666]

My aunt is mistranscribed in that it shows her year of birth as 1860, but strangely with the correct day and month. When I saw her earlier in the year she was looking good for 155 

Haha, that's brilliant! I've found a few mistranscribed years, but nothing this extreme!

[Blue70]

I'm getting a second person now on the previews whether signed in or not. I suppose it's FindMyPast's way of making up for what they took away. Good cop/bad cop 


Blue

[Guy Etchells]

Disappointed that the URLs on searches have been changed so that they no longer contain the piece and item number,  nor do they appear as a quick flash when you first see the search results page. Unless someone has found a way to interpret the new URL.

snip

Are FindMyPast deliberately doing this to make searches more difficult? Any ideas?

No they are not doing it to make searches more difficult.
In my opinion they are doing it because people have been bragging on the forums and mailing lists that they were using the reference number to get the information without having to purchase the images.

If you need to blame someone blame those freeloaders.

They are the people causing the problems, don't forget if FindMyPast software writers were not having to find ways to stop that kind of activity they could be writing programs to reconcile deaths with the redacted entries on the register and other similar useful work.

You can still use the reference number just purchase an image.

How come nobody is complaining when the get two pages of images for the price of one when a household stretches over two pages.
We recently had a thread on Rootschat about saying thanks seems many apply double standards in their lives.

As I have mentioned before all the work Findmypast have put in to digitising the 1939 National Register provides you the current family historian with a useful source which will still be useful to our descendants.
In addition All the work they have put in will also benefit their rivals in the future when they are allowed to licence the dataset, again benefiting you.
Finally if you want to view the dataset free visit the National Archives and there you can view the digital transcriptions and images provided by Findmypast without purchasing a single one.

Cheers
Guy

[dawnsh]

maybe we could play TNA reference number bingo?

Take a random 4 digit number and add a letter to the end and then take a random 3 digit number greater than 002, out them into the TNA ref boxes of an advanced person search and see what happens?

3000a 002 = Wallsend

3400a 002 = Halifax

[dawnsh]

I wouldn't object to buying the household image for my grandmother, but having seen the page at TNA the header at the top of the page is cropped off so I don't know the name of the village. She lives in a cottage without a street name. I've been told by FindMyPast the page before hers also has no street names. All I know is she is in Winslow RD.

I've been in correspondance directly with FindMyPast since last Thursday and they are still unable to tell me where she was.