The 1939 Register

This morning I visited another forum and read that the Reference Number is no longer showing. I checked it out and found this to be true.

 

I found this too. Very frustrating. I presume they found too few people were buying credits as so much could be found without doing so by using the reference numbers. I wish I had looked up more earlier in the week!

 

Perhaps Peter will check on the validity of this, but sounds 'bullish' enough to be true if their pricing is anything to go by.

 

Good News! It is on your URL. I had trouble reading it correctly but copied it to a Word document and enlarged it. IT WORKS

 

I am now humming Frank Sinatra's song "They can't take that away from me"

 

Thank you that was well spotted. I wonder whether FMP will try to change it. Interestingly having used ref data for some searches this week it has shown up quite a few transcription errors; more than I would have expected.

If I have got this right the oddest “error” I have found related to a set of my great grandparents. My information suggested there should just be the two of them at their address and both should be open as they were born in 1876. In practice I found Emily in the index with a “?” in the middle of her surname (presumably they couldn’t work out what letter it was) and confirmation on the preview that her ref ended in “9”. It also said that there was just one other person in the same household and it was an open record. There was no name given for the household just “Household”. There was no sign of my great grandfather under his surname or any variant. I was pretty sure of their address and a check using the reference number showed that just two individuals records related to that address (based on the numbers for the addresses on either side being ref 10 and 11 on one side and 5-7 on the other). However on looking at the records for their specific address it again had no household name, the first named person there appeared to be an open record but had no name or age but ref no. ending “8” which makes it likely that it was my great grandfather. In addition it stated there were no other open records (although Emily’s is open) just a closed one.

 

I think there are some transcription errors on some of the dates of birth. I was looking up to check if the 1939 entry agreed with the date of birth on a probable death entry. There was a match if I just entered the month and year, but not if I entered the exact date.
Yet again, the advice of entering less may yield more seems to apply.

 

Thank you Peter that makes general sense so maybe the head of household where my ggmother lived was closed and it wasn't my ggfather. However as one record says there are only two open record people at the address and the other says there is the unaamed person plus one closed record at the address and the ref numbers show only 2 people there it is confusing. If the unamed person is my ggfather as he was born 1876 it should be open.

 

I agree, but how?? Maybe by private messages?

 

Too late. This is already being discussed elsewhere. e.g. http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=734390.0
where there are some other good tips such as
- Find an exact DOB from an approximate DOB using free search only
- Find an address for a person using free search

 

I think that is wishful thinking. Facebook is apparently alive with comments about the disappearence of the numbers.

The fact that FMP is engaged in such tactics does not endear it to me in the least.

 

Just because the numbers aren't displayed doesn't mean they aren't there. I easily found them in the pages source code.

[edit] and I am surely breaking FMP's Terms and Conditions
You must not ... modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Site or parts of the Site

So don't do it!

 

Yes but the information we are taking isn't what they are selling. We are just taking a code that makes searching easier. We still have to pay for the data.

 

I've been a subscriber to FMP for years and I object to being likened to a shop-lifter.

The idea of checking out one or two households by using the refererence numbers was to ensure I had the correct household. Without this information, I would certainly not download the file as the name of the household was unknown to me. With the added "shop-lifting" information I was able to ascertain that it was a relative of mine.

You also said:
quote
the last thing we want is for Findmypast to respond with further changes that make searching more difficult.
unquote

and now you find it is right for FMP to close loopholes.