1939 Register up and running (Part 3)

[thebounder]

I don't understand why Find My Past make such a big deal of opening redacted records.

In its simplest form, all they need is a 1 byte field on each record set to 0-closed, or 1-open, then, once a week or so, they run a program that reads every record, checks the DOB for 100 years and 1 day, and if it is set to 0, re-set it to 1, and copy details of each record opened to a file for later checking.

I have a database on my PC of over 5 million records, and such a program takes about 40 seconds to run, so it should take only 5 minutes or so for the 1939 database.

I appreciate that it is far from being as simple as that, as Find My Past state that new software had to be written, and that there is no comparison between the complexity of my records and those of the 1939 database, but the principle remains the same.

[clairec666]

I don't understand why Find My Past make such a big deal of opening redacted records.

In its simplest form, all they need is a 1 byte field on each record set to 0-closed, or 1-open, then, once a week or so, they run a program that reads every record, checks the DOB for 100 years and 1 day, and if it is set to 0, re-set it to 1, and copy details of each record opened to a file for later checking.

I have a database on my PC of over 5 million records, and such a program takes about 40 seconds to run, so it should take only 5 minutes or so for the 1939 database.

I appreciate that it is far from being as simple as that, as Find My Past state that new software had to be written, and that there is no comparison between the complexity of my records and those of the 1939 database, but the principle remains the same.

Hmmm, I thought the same (thinking as I do from a software developer's point of view!) I would have thought all the hard work came in writing the software, since the requirements for dealing with the data differed from any data set FindMyPast had released before. Once tested and running, I thought opening the redacted records would be straightforward?

[andycand]

Hi

Whilst the unredacting of people 100 years from DOB should be fairly straightforward it is the requests for unredacting that may be more time consuming. Surely they have to verify that the person on the death certificate is the same person as on the Register.

Andy 

[clairec666]

Hi

Whilst the unredacting of people 100 years from DOB should be fairly straightforward it is the requests for unredacting that may be more time consuming. Surely they have to verify that the person on the death certificate is the same person as on the Register.

Andy

In many cases it'll be impossible to prove... I think they've got their work cut out!

[jillruss]

Does anyone have any evidence that FindMyPast do actually get back to you when they ask you to be patient as they're looking into your particular query? If so, how long are they taking?

I got an email from them 10 days ago to say they'd passed my query (missing address) to their technical team to investigate.

I'm just wondering if I'm staring into a blackhole! 

[groom]

Not sure if this has been answered anywhere in the many posts. I keep get adverts saying, "Find out who was living in your house in 1939."  I know you can search by street, but can you also search by the number in the street,  I thought it was just an alphabetical list?

[Guy Etchells]

The address search lists the house numbers in the street, odd numbers first then odd numbers added later, followed by even numbers then even numbers added later.

Some additional addresses (those who did not respond to the registration at the time) were not added to this register but added to the later register these are not available.

Cheers
Guy

[groom]

Thanks Guy. Hadn't spotted that before! However, it does confirm what I keep telling FindMyPast, the houses of my grandparents and immediate neighbours are missing from the register.

[LizzieL]

My grandmother has one person "officially closed" living with her in 1939. Apart from my father, she had three other children who were alive in 1939, all born after 1915, so it could be any of them with her. Two of those three have died (2007 and 2009) so could be unredacted now. But if I supply FindMyPast with the death cert, I also have to supply the address where they were living in 1939. My grandmother's address could be right for one of my deceased uncle and aunt, or it could be wrong for both and the person with her is my still living aunt.
Any suggestions what I can do.