One of the advantages of having my small THUBRON ONS centred on England/Wales is that you can know that you have an almost complete coverage, certainly for the first part of the 20th Century. An obvious disadvantage is that your study name will probably not conform to any norm. In my case the name was almost entirely confined originally to County Durham in the 19th Century. When the 1939 Register was announced my attitude was “So what?”, thinking it would do little for me, and I only purchased two records. But having an FMP subscription, when they added 1939 to the membership entitlement I dutifully ploughed my way through it, and I thought it might be useful to others to describe the results. Everything I give here derives from UK records – up to 1939 I only know of a handful of the name who ventured overseas. In the 1911 Census I had found 261name entries. This followed a gradual growth from the 1841 version and I believe is about 95% of the total that should be there. The 1939 Register gave 168 names in 80 households. In addition there were 21 people (all women) of other names whose name is listed as changing to THUBRON at some unknown time after 1939, presumably due to marriage, and check of GRO Marriages confirmed this. There were 13 THUBRONs who later changed their name, again by marriage although one was a 5 year-old boy. (I would have expected the changes to be a more similar number.) 19 households also had a total of 39 redactions – people excluded from the site due to the 100-year age barrier on data. Most or all (in my case) are probably young members of the family, but could be anyone below the age of 23 in 1939 now thought to be still alive. But it is useful to see that the redactions are there. This therefore gave me a possible total of 168 +39 = 207 THUBRONs in the households seen. Since I couldn’t see the redactions in other households nor people in the Services etc, this seems to be a reasonable return, and it is significant that 87% were still in Durham, Northumberland or Yorkshire. So what did I learn? Firstly, some of the transcriptions are appalling; for that reason it is essential to look at the original records, and this is also necessary to see where the redactions have been made in households. Secondly the main advantage in my view is that “exact” dates of birth are given (but beware of mistranscriptions). Where you have several possible people with the same first name, this allows you to sort out who is the partner in marriages and also allows you to confirm who died in the GRO Death Registers after 1969 when they started adding full dates of birth. Thirdly, the name changes that are noted allow you to trace partners in marriages after 1939, and in particular, in a few cases of two name changes, you can see successive marriages, almost impossible to find otherwise. Fourthly the Nat. Registration Numbers given out were based on Households, not Families. So where mine was TPCS 188/4, being the younger of two children and both my parents present, if we had an unrelated visitor he would have been 188/5. One of my names was in hospital and his number ended up /27. What you don’t learn of course, which is very frustrating, is the information on the redacted people. Also, as is normal, the information is still only as good as the people supplying it . I found at least one case of what appears to be deliberate falsification, in this case leading to a 60-year-old woman producing two children, and I think it was actually a younger woman masquerading as a wife. Was it worth the considerable effort? – definitely, despite the usual problems with FMP’s weird search engine and the terrible transcriptions. I have no connection with FMP. Adrian

Well done. I am still ploughing through mine. I had done stats on the transcriptions due to financial constraints but are now going through the originals Luckily also a small study: I have 122 on a "strict" Pullum search and have excluded 10 (2 doubles, 6 women not Pullum until later - marriages confirmed, 2 mistranscriptions) leaving 112 Looking at "known" Pullums alive and in the country at the time (including excluding a family of 5 who seemed to have changed their name)I have a total of 285 (but this included closed records) I have found (including the above 112) 139 For 41 of the closed records, I am sure I have identified them (e.g with parents & siblings) For 9 of the closed records I am less sure that I can place them. These relate to 3 families and in all cases, the parents have been found but the number of closed records with them does not correlate with the number of living children they had at the time. This leave 96 that I have not found. These will include service personel of course. All but 3 of the "original" 112 can be attached to the same tree (one is a mother and son, and while writing this have had an idea how this may clear up a previous query :) and the 3rd is widowed woman but I cannot find the marriage) Apart from these 3, all were descended from 3 brothers (so one individual!)and were in 1939 in 66 households - this I am rechecking since being able to view the originals. I agree with your comments regarding the usefulness and restrictions. -- Nikki Brown #6552 Pullum ONS https://pullumons.wordpress.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Abbott via" <[email protected]> To: "GOONS" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, 21 March, 2016 12:43:56 PM Subject: [G] 1939 Register Experiences One of the advantages of having my small THUBRON ONS centred on England/Wales is that you can know that you have an almost complete coverage, certainly for the first part of the 20th Century. An obvious disadvantage is that your study name will probably not conform to any norm. In my case the name was almost entirely confined originally to County Durham in the 19th Century. When the 1939 Register was announced my attitude was “So what?”, thinking it would do little for me, and I only purchased two records. But having an FMP subscription, when they added 1939 to the membership entitlement I dutifully ploughed my way through it, and I thought it might be useful to others to describe the results. Everything I give here derives from UK records – up to 1939 I only know of a handful of the name who ventured overseas. In the 1911 Census I had found 261name entries. This followed a gradual growth from the 1841 version and I believe is about 95% of the total that should be there. The 1939 Register gave 168 names in 80 households. In addition there were 21 people (all women) of other names whose name is listed as changing to THUBRON at some unknown time after 1939, presumably due to marriage, and check of GRO Marriages confirmed this. There were 13 THUBRONs who later changed their name, again by marriage although one was a 5 year-old boy. (I would have expected the changes to be a more similar number.) 19 households also had a total of 39 redactions – people excluded from the site due to the 100-year age barrier on data. Most or all (in my case) are probably young members of the family, but could be anyone below the age of 23 in 1939 now thought to be still alive. But it is useful to see that the redactions are there. This therefore gave me a possible total of 168 +39 = 207 THUBRONs in the households seen. Since I couldn’t see the redactions in other households nor people in the Services etc, this seems to be a reasonable return, and it is significant that 87% were still in Durham, Northumberland or Yorkshire. So what did I learn? Firstly, some of the transcriptions are appalling; for that reason it is essential to look at the original records, and this is also necessary to see where the redactions have been made in households. Secondly the main advantage in my view is that “exact” dates of birth are given (but beware of mistranscriptions). Where you have several possible people with the same first name, this allows you to sort out who is the partner in marriages and also allows you to confirm who died in the GRO Death Registers after 1969 when they started adding full dates of birth. Thirdly, the name changes that are noted allow you to trace partners in marriages after 1939, and in particular, in a few cases of two name changes, you can see successive marriages, almost impossible to find otherwise. Fourthly the Nat. Registration Numbers given out were based on Households, not Families. So where mine was TPCS 188/4, being the younger of two children and both my parents present, if we had an unrelated visitor he would have been 188/5. One of my names was in hospital and his number ended up /27. What you don’t learn of course, which is very frustrating, is the information on the redacted people. Also, as is normal, the information is still only as good as the people supplying it . I found at least one case of what appears to be deliberate falsification, in this case leading to a 60-year-old woman producing two children, and I think it was actually a younger woman masquerading as a wife. Was it worth the considerable effort? – definitely, despite the usual problems with FMP’s weird search engine and the terrible transcriptions. I have no connection with FMP. Adrian _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message