1939 Register

[Thunder]

The information on the WDYTYA Magazine website is actually wrong as it says that closed records are those of people born less than 100 years ago and whose deaths had not been registered. My mum was born in 1925 and her death was registered in 1987 and her entry is still not open!.

[Mick Loney]

Thunder,
Ancestry and Findmypast both have these records, but one updates more frequently than the other. If you find a record closed on one site, try the other. If a record is closed in error, you can request to have it opened. What evidence they require I’m not sure.

NB These records ARE usually closed for 100 years, unless death has occured, but some deaths have been missed, hence the option to rectify the error

[Guy]

Yes both Findmypast & Ancestry have the 1939 National Registration, however I believe only FindmyPast can remove the redactions, once the redactions are removed the updated data set is shared with both the National Archives and Ancestry. That is how it used to work & I believe that system is still in use today.

There is no system in place in England & Wales to connect births & deaths (i.e. no through life record) so it is possible for recorded deaths not to be correctly matched to births. This may be for a variety of reasons such as parents marrying & children using their mother's new married name women marrying, people marrying or dying out of the country and even out of the county of birth. There are also those who died where no one knew anything about them, unnamed deaths.
Cheers
Guy

[Mick Loney]

Guy,
Not forgetting those whose Birth certificate date of birth (DOB) doesn’t match the DOB on their Death certificate. Many people had their birth certificate DOB ‘massaged’ to avoid the penalty for late registration, and was then reverted to the true DOB for their death certificates.
Like my own father

[Norfolk Nan]

Or the person notifying the death doesn’t know the actual birth date and make a guess - I’ve seen this several times. I’m not always convinced individuals know the facts either - compare dates of births with birthdays given in the 1939 reg doc. I’d say a good third of mine have been off by a year or two in some cases or some days in others.

[Mick Loney]

Or the person notifying the death doesn’t know the actual birth date and make a guess - I’ve seen this several times. I’m not always convinced individuals know the facts either - compare dates of births with birthdays given in the 1939 reg doc. I’d say a good third of mine have been off by a year or two in some cases or some days in others.

And I thought it only my lot that did that

[AdrianBruce]

... My mum was born in 1925 and her death was registered in 1987 and her entry is still not open!.

If I recall correctly until [insert forgotten date here!] updates of deaths on the Register were made by the GP's practice sending the details in to "NHS Central". So possible issue 1 is whether the GP's practice got to know (I have no idea how thorough notification was at that time). The second point is that practices were paid according to the numbers of patients on their books. (Reasonably enough). However, this did mean that there was a perverse incentive to not rush to record deaths. And I remember seeing a post somewhere from a chap working on the NHS computerisation, who said that when they did the numbers, it was clear that a number of patients on practices' books were actually deceased.

[AnneTeresa]

I'm not sure that I trust the data available online. The records for both my mother ( born 1927 although the register says 1928) and her brother (born 1934) are open despite them being very much alive although the record for their sister (born 1935) and also alive is closed.
Like others, I have deceased relatives who'd records are closed.

[Mick Loney]

Adrian,
Makes one wonder how accurate todays Covid 19 reported death figures are

[Guy]

I'm not sure that I trust the data available online. The records for both my mother ( born 1927 although the register says 1928) and her brother (born 1934) are open despite them being very much alive although the record for their sister (born 1935) and also alive is closed.
Like others, I have deceased relatives who'd records are closed.

Don't forget due to "privacy" the 1939 National Registration was transcribed in columns with only one column at a time being displayed for the transcribers.
When the pages were reassembled there was sometime column slip allowing the data to be attached to the wrong entry, such data slip also sometimes allowed a row to be opened or redacted in error.
Cheers
Guy