No. 19697 Ted Tonkin, 23rd Battalion, H.Q. Coy, 2nd NZEF, M.E. Forces to Ernie 28th Nov. 1942 [Edward Alexander Tonkin died in 1961 aged 47. Born c.1914.] http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzlscant/El_Alamein.htm

Hi All, from John Wilson Re late registration birth entries, they appear online in the Registrar-General’s historic births website for the actual date, with the only clue to a late registration (or an adoption reregistration) being the year prefix. So the Taranaki author and journalist John Guthrie (he wrote The Little Country, The Seekers and Paradise Bay) appears under his real name of John Brodie as born on 9 July 1905 but with the registration number 1925/3385. NB: the birth (to Walter Brodie and wife) was noted in the New Zealand Herald of 29 July. Similarly an event (BDM) in late December may be registered in January so will appear online with a registration number (prefix) of the year after the event occurred. The RG historic website can be used to find the actual date, by gradually restricting the search range: for a birth in 1908 search 1/1/1908 to 1/7/1908, then if it is search 1/1/1908 to 1/3/1908 then 1/2/1908 to 19/2/1908 then 1/2/1908 to 9/2/1908 then to (say) 3/2/1908 which is the recorded date! But for RG numbers, the actual year may be the year before or years later than the prefix number. Originally pre-1875 historic events on the website did not have the actual date online just the year, but the date information has been gradually added. This also applied to New Zealand World Wars I & II wardeaths, which were previously listed as 1918 or 1945; see FAQs on website. Previously a date search would find all the events (BDM) in that year. From 1972 the death registration asked for the birth date, which was shown on the online entry instead of the age at death (useful!). Note that the RG historic website shows deaths from those born 80 years ago or more immediately (when registered, so a few days delay?) and all deaths from 50 years ago or more. So the website will show on 8 January 2017 all deaths to 8 January 1967 (+50y ago). But a 1-year old born 1968 who died in 1969 will not have his death online until 2018 (+50y). Similarly you can search the website for births up to 50 years ago but the search will only find stillbirths for between 50 and 100 years ago. But for marriages you cannot put in a search date of under 80 years ago. Re adoptions, if the child was reregistered in the adoptive parents name after the the year of birth, an entry with the new name was inserted into the earlier index for the birth year. These handwritten additions can be seen on the microfiches of the RG indexes in libraries. I suppose though that this would not apply when the child was reregistered in the same year before the annual index was prepared, and some may be ordinary late registrations (some late entries refer to the section of the act that applies). https://www.bdmonline.dia.govt.nz/ Yours, John Wilson