lol 1939 Register - if you know enough...

[Merry]

I couldn't find my maternal grandparents who moved house around the time the register was taken. I found their old house and new house, but they didn't seem to be living at either of those places. So, for 12 hours or so I gave up.....

Today is a new day, so I thought I'd try another tack.... These are the facts I was working with....

Grandfather, Walter Henry Clark b 1 Apr 1888 male married occ interior designer/architect/civilian worker for the army
Grandmother, Winifred May Harriet Clark b 8 Nov 1892, but generally lied about her age, losing up to four years, female married, occ housewife

They had two children both of whom were still alive in 1991 so their records should be closed. If they were living near to either of their two possible addresses then I needed to look at either Hoddesdon in Herts or Swindon in Wiltshire.

Today I chose to begin with my grandfather's dob with male and married (too many results) so also added occ architect as that was the only job he held qualifications in, though it wasn't the job he was doing in 1939. There were six matches, one in Hoddesdon, so I investigated that and found the following people living in the same household:

Brian J Redshaw 1888 (has Walter's dob and occ)
Joyce A Pavitt (Redhsaw) 1895 (has my gran's birthday but wrong year as expected)
Kate Pallett 1924 (has my mum's dob even though she is still living. Her name isn't Kate or anything similar)

There's one closed record which I bet has matching dob for my aunt who died in 2005.

So, I wasn't going to purchase this record because all I wanted to know was whether my gran lied about her age on it. Now I want to purchase it to see what sort of **** ** has been made!! (and I wonder when they think mum died?!!!)

The name Brian Redshaw doesn't seem to exist until the 1920s, so I don't know where they got that name from. I feel like fmp are trying really hard to extract my money!!!

My grandfather was mildly dyslexic - a fact he used to joke he kept hidden with poor handwriting, but it wasn't that bad!

[kiterunner]

Joyce A Redshaw married a Pavitt Jan-Mar 1955 Ware district.

Joyce Ann Pavitt died Dec 2003 Hatfield district, dob 27 Oct 1935.

So I am guessing they have mixed some people up!

[Merry]

So, what's the betting if I buy this record it will be for the Pavitts and not for my lot?! Meanwhile I can't find mine by name, possibly if they are hidden if the system thinks they were born in 1935!

[ElizabethHerts]

What a mess, Merry! You would think people would double-check.

[kiterunner]

Last night when I was looking at some households (on the free search and preview) for my father's side of my tree, that I previewed the first member of each household that I found, noted down the reference number, e.g. RG101/1460C/010/7, and then copied the middle two sets of numbers into Piece Number and Item Number on the advanced search form, and the name I already had as "other household member's name", leaving all other fields (including the main name) blank, to get a full list of the rest of the open records in the household.

If you do the same but leave out the "other household member's name" you get a longer list, which I assume should be all the names on the page. Then you can sort them into households using the same system.

For the family you were looking at, the numbers are Piece Number 1616A and Item Number 006. There are a couple of Clarks on the page but it could be a coincidence. This is supposedly the household the Clarks are in:

Elizabeth Boyce 1908
Harry Clark 1904
Jessie Clark 1935
Muriel M Hampton (Redshaw) 1930
Emma M Redshaw 1933
Stanley V Redshaw 1905
Victor E Redshaw 1907
Florence E Smith 1870
Sydney E Smith 1897
and 1 closed record.

[ElizabethHerts]

I've been using that tactic, too, Kate.

[Merry]

Elizabeth Boyce 1908
Harry Clark 1904
Jessie Clark 1935
Muriel M Hampton (Redshaw) 1930 << sibling of Joyce
Emma M Redshaw 1933
Stanley V Redshaw 1905
Victor E Redshaw 1907
Florence E Smith 1870
Sydney E Smith 1897
and 1 closed record.

Victor and Emma are the parents of Joyce, Muriel and Victor Redshaw. Victor E Redshaw was born in 1899 not 1907. Emma was nee Smith, so I guess Florence and Sydney are her relatives. So that leaves Eliz Boyce and the two Clarks. Walter had a sister called Jessie who I hadn't looked for so I'll see if I can positively identify her elsewhere now. Harry doesn't mean anything to me.

[kiterunner]

Looking at FMP's guide to searching the 1939 Register, I can see that we shouldn't be surprised the results are all messed up.
http://www.findmypast.co.uk/1939regi...etting-started

They have an image of the "Churchill Household" record for a Winston Churchill born 1900, 2 more people, and 3 closed record people, living in Rhondda, Glamorgan. Below this image it says the following:

With this information, you can confirm that you've found the correct record or household. The image above shows the preview for Lily Phillips. We can see that she was born in 1898, is resident in Bolton, Lancashire and lives with three other people, one of whom has a closed record (either because they were born after 1915 and are still alive, or born after 1915 and their death hasn't been recorded in the register. With this free information, we hope to help you to be more confident that the correct record has been found.

[Merry]

Yes, I've just found my Jessie living in Swindon in the same house she was in until the 1970s, so def her (and correct dob lol)

So, now I'm wondering if I can work out where the Redshaw's were actually living - I'm going to try next door to the house where my grandparents were probably still living.

EDIT - I got fed up with that idea as there are too many address searches that cannot be viewed. I looked at about 20 successfully and was surprised to note that probably more than half of them had no surname or no first name or both. Surely the handwriting couldn't be that bad??

One thing I had forgotten (and hadn't entered on my tree ) is this post I made in 2012 where I'd been trying to track down mum's old neighbours:

At first mum knew nothing about them at all (who??), but eventually she remembered her mother rushing across the road to tell the neighbour's Norwegian wife that Germany had invaded Norway which reduced the poor woman to tears because she hadn't already heard the news.

This means I now know that my family were still in Broxbourne on 8th April 1940 which was news to me as mum always said they moved out when war was declared! She now realises that wasn't quite correct!

So, my family should be listed at their Broxbourne address in 1939 which was Sunny Lawn, High Road, Broxbourne. I found this address yesterday but all it had was one closed entry and one open entry which had no name or date transcribed. Maybe I'd better try Kate's trick with the refs to see if anything else is revealed?

[Merry]

OK, so I've done Kates numbers search and come up with the following:

— — — Hoddesdon U.D. Hertfordshire
— — — Hoddesdon U.D. Hertfordshire
Sheila M Hines (Chaplin) 1916 Hoddesdon U.D. Hertfordshire
Annie E Holden — Hoddesdon U.D. Hertfordshire
Leonard ? Marlow 1899 Hoddesdon U.D. Hertfordshire
— — — Hoddesdon U.D. Hertfordshire
Winifred S Wright — Hoddesdon U.D. Hertfordshire

I did a double take at Sheila M Hines as Sheila M is mum's name, but this Sheila was a real person, b 1926 (not 1916) and died as Chaplin before 1991.

I did note the Holden in there!!

I'm supposed to be starting on decorating the living room today and this isn't helping!