Grandfather John O'Donnell - No Paper Trail for 50 Years!

[PaulineJ]

Have to checked to see if your local library is currently offering from-home access?

[KGarrad]

Remember - the 1939 National Register you can see on Ancestry and FindMyPast only covers England & Wales.
The Register for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man etc. has to be accessed separately, where it is available.

[MonicaL]

Did brother Patrick register his death? If so, some hope the birth date was correct...

If he did register his death, is this how you know he was a brother to John as it showed on John's death reg this way?

From the 1939 register, what was the birth date showing for Patrick O'Donnell?

Monica

[Annette7]

John O'Donnell did serve in the Army - he enlisted 28/6/1919 and served in Egypt/Sudan from 15/11/1919 until 10/5/1922. Royal Munster Fusiliers.   So may well have re-enlisted at start of war hence missing from 1939 register.

Annette

[josey]

Maybe as a grandchild, hols92 could apply for his army record?

I agree with Monica, try following Patrick.

[Maiden Stone]

Other reasons?
Maybe he wasn't in England/Wales at the time?

Was his family Irish? He might have gone to Ireland.

[hols92]

Hi Monica, Annette and Maiden Stone!
Thank you all so much!

Yes brother Patrick registered his death.
His birthday is on the death cert but also his army record backs this up
Yes I know Patrick is his brother from the death cert but also this corresponds with the Irish census from 1911.
They also lived together in Rowton House in St Pancras, London together in the 1920s from 1923 to 1926/7

I can find Patrick in Watford, Herts with wife Olive in the 1939 census right where my Grandfather was reported to be when meeting my Grandmother and my father was born 10 years later.
Patrick and Olive also married in Watford the same year that my father was born in 1949.

Interestingly the date of birth of Patrick in the 1939 census is the wrong year.
He was born 10 August 1900 but on the 1939 census he is listed as 10 August 1902 which of course was the year my grandfather was born not Patrick.

I have birth registrations and baptismal records for all of my grandfathers siblings to back up these dates.

Can anyone point me in the right direction of looking for WW2 records of soldiers as I am finding these much harder to find online unlike WW1?

[josey]

WW2 records are not online. Next of kin or direct descendants can apply for them [it costs and takes a while] see this thread
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=595286.msg4455042#msg4455042
which has a link to the page for applications.

[hols92]

Thanks so much Josey!

I will have a look into that. Although I feel pretty certain he didn't rejoin. He would have been 37 years old in 1939 and also he had quite the record for going AWOL and trying to leave the army in WW1 according to his papers.
So I just don't get the feeling that he would have then signed up to fight in WW2.

Would his record be blocked for any reason? Why would this be and how would I go about unblocking it potentially.

Do you also have any idea of accessing electoral rolls for after 1939 as I have found they are fairly scarce in the areas I am researching ie, Watford, Hertfordshire and St Pancras, London in the 1940's, 1950s and 1960s???