1939 Register up and running (Part 2)

[jillruss]

Until FindMyPast admit that, contrary to their publicity blurb, everyone living in England and Wales in 1939 was NOT included on this register and that they need to look into where these missng people's details were kept as and when they were issued with ID cards etc, we're not going to make any further progress.

It is quite a big jump from not being able to find them to saying not everyone was included in the register. As they needed to be on the register for ID cards and rationing purposes, I would say it's extremely likely that most people we currently cannot find are indeed in there somewhere. Probably a lot less people are ACTUALLY missing than in, say, the census.
In defence of FindMyPast, they don't know you, they don't know how thorough you are with your searching. I'm sure there are people out there who, if something isn't EXACTLY where they expect to find it, swear it is missing (I am not for one moment saying that is you), and the job of that e-mail is to "encourage" people to think outside the box.
However, I'm equally sure there are many, many instances of people being missing from FMPs indexes of the register or mistranscribed. With something of this size, I suppose is almost inevitable.It happens on all similar releases (Anc's Electoral Rolls for London were - still are - a nightmare). What makes this harder is that we cannot currently see everything. So when we say to FindMyPast "something is missing", it is so easy for them to reply that it is just us looking in the wrong place

You're obviously a much nicer, more forgiving person than I am, ReadyDale.  If it was just an odd person here and there that I couldn't find, I might be convinced. However, both sets of grandparents are not be found and neither are the addresses where I'd expect to find them. I searched for my grandmothers separately in case my grandfathers had gone off to fight (despite their ages and that they'd already fought the Hun in 1914-18) but still no sign of any of them. Then, thinks I, perhaps one of them is with her other family - look for older sister, nothing. Look for in laws - nothing!!

You can see why I'm not very happy with FindMyPast? I'm not saying I'm brilliant at these searches - far from it - but I have been doing this well over 10 years now and I do know about mistranscriptions but not to find any of the above is rather a coincidence. The main names (Russell and Gibson) are not that easy to mistranscribe, though I did find a great uncle and aunt transcribed as James & Emily Rumble, which I quite fancied and considered changing my name by deedpoll.  One name I've been looking for - Stubbs - is notorious for outlandish mistranscriptions, but, amazingly, seems intact in the 1939 Register!!

As you can tell, I'm starting to go ever so slightly bananas over this....

[ReadyDale]

This is not a simple as it seems.

Take for instance my mother :

Maiden surname GUY (1915-1938) : 1st Married surname GITTINS (1938-1946) : 2nd Married surname ETCHELLS (1946-2004 marriage in Scotland).

The 1939 National Register indexes her under her first, name, initial and 2nd married name with her first married name in brackets, i.e. Anita E. Etchells (Gittins), her maiden surname does not appear in the index.
One good thing is even marriages which have taken place in Scotland are noted on the register.

One disadvantage of redactions is the name of the road she was living on at the time is redacted as it appears once on the image under a redacted entry.
I am not sure if this will prevent searching by address though suspect it will

Cheers
Guy

In the example you quote (which I think is similar to the circumstances I was responding to), I would not expect her maiden name ("Guy" in your scenario), as she had already stopped being "Guy" prior to the Register being created. It is afterall a working document the we happen to find useful, not a genealogy-specific database.
Your other point regarding an address being hidden from searches because it's only occurance on the sheet is redacted, is more of a problem (if that is indeed the case) and would solely be down to how the redaction was done. Personally, I cannot see how knowing a house existed, but only contained x number of people who were all born after 1915 and died after 1991, would breach anyone's privacy 

[johnP-bedford]

Assume there's a regular process that runs over the database that auto-opens closed records when the person reaches 100 years old ... guess I'll wait until May 2019

[ReadyDale]

You're obviously a much nicer, more forgiving person than I am, ReadyDale. 

Aw shucks! 
 

If it was just an odd person here and there that I couldn't find, I might be convinced. However, both sets of grandparents are not be found and neither are the addresses where I'd expect to find them. I searched for my grandmothers separately in case my grandfathers had gone off to fight (despite their ages and that they'd already fought the Hun in 1914-18) but still no sign of any of them. Then, thinks I, perhaps one of them is with her other family - look for older sister, nothing. Look for in laws - nothing!!

You can see why I'm not very happy with FindMyPast? I'm not saying I'm brilliant at these searches - far from it - but I have been doing this well over 10 years now and I do know about mistranscriptions but not to find any of the above is rather a coincidence. The main names (Russell and Gibson) are not that easy to mistranscribe, though I did find a great uncle and aunt transcribed as James & Emily Rumble, which I quite fancied and considered changing my name by deedpoll.  One name I've been looking for - Stubbs - is notorious for outlandish mistranscriptions, but, amazingly, seems intact in the 1939 Register!!

As you can tell, I'm starting to go ever so slightly bananas over this....

But that is my point. The problem is not with FindMyPast's claimed that the register includes everyone around at the time (excluding those already off fighting - which they openly said). More an issue with FindMyPast's indexing and/or transcribing.
I have related this story on 1939 thread earlier, but I had EXACTLY the same scenario as you - people missing using all the search techniques learnt over the years, plus the various tips from Dawn's thread for this. Nothing. Like you, I tried looking for other family they might be with. Also missing. I had the luxury of having access to the electoral rolls for the relevent area/period and went through their neighbours one-by-one up the street until I found one (yes, I know, I should get out more  ), then looked for adjacent pieces and found the offending one and (despite knowing EXACTLY the reference for what I needed, it still wasn't coming up. So I did Live Chat with FindMyPast, telling them specifically what was not showing and what I'd tried. They tried the same (just to make sure I wasn't stupid), admitted they were missing from the index (not from the register) and passed it to their techie team and low-and-behold, less than 24 hours later they appeared (with exactly they names, DoBs, addresses, and piece reference numbers I had predicted)
As they used to say on the X-Files - "The truth is out there!" 

[ShaunJ]

I had the luxury of having access to the electoral rolls for the relevent area/period and went through their neighbours one-by-one up the street until I found one

In my case I have the neighbours names from a 1938 Directory. All 10 households on that stretch of road are missing from FindMyPast's 1939 Register.

[groom]

Not sure if this has been asked.

Looking at the free index part of the 1939 for an uncle, it says there are 3 people in the house plus 2 closed. When I unlocked it, there were only 3 people, all open - my uncle, his wife and her mother. However, and this is the question, her mother has been crossed out in red and in the first column the words "See page 15" have been added. This is also written in red in the last column. Any one know why this could be, or if it is possible to see page 15?

[ReadyDale]

I had the luxury of having access to the electoral rolls for the relevent area/period and went through their neighbours one-by-one up the street until I found one

In my case I have the neighbours names from a 1938 Directory. All 10 households on that stretch of road are missing from FindMyPast's 1939 Register.

If you can find the nearest neighbour that does appear in the register, take the reference (the second and third parts are the important ones) and try searching with the reference as the only criteria, adjusting the third part up one and/or down one. Probably one will error. Likely that page is lost in the ether of FMPs database. Live Chat them and tell them and it could well appear quite quickly 

[bibliotaphist]

... if it is possible to see page 15?

I've had one of these. is there a white arrow on the right (or left) of the screen to allow you to move to the next page image?

[ShaunJ]

How do I find the live chat link? The contact page says "Live Chat: chat online in real time to our Customer Support team by selecting the Chat option at the bottom of this page" - but the option isn't there.