At the time you and I were born, before the coming of the NHS, we were issued with national identity numbers, that then went on to be the NHS number, as following the end of the war,everyone had one. ID cards were not scrapped till the fifties, after the NHS came in. Yours and mine are in 2parts, letters, for the place and date of the registration district of issue, and numbers, very conveniently normally the "entry number" on the birth certificate. Check it if you did not spot this. Mine was Brentford, 3rd quarter of 1943, entry number 365, so BAJR365. From meeting others born in the same district within a year or two, the BA part seems to be related to Brentford, the other two letters seem to change by date. I believe that for "national security" reasons, no "decode" of these letters exists (or perhaps it does but has not been released). I don't know whether anyone has suggested a project to compile the old idcard/NHS letters into a database, before people forget them, on the lines of cardinal points in GRO indexes. Perhaps the 1939 registration database will do this, but I would bet the published version will omit the letters and numbers. For people already living at the time the records were set up in 1939, a different numbering scheme was used, often written as, say, 123.4, where I understand the first bit was the household,the second your place in it. Thus 4th person in household 123. With no check digits, there is no protection against transcription error, but the new system that replaced it in the nineties has such a protection. There is also no handy correspondence with birth certificate, but I was told that males and females could be distinguished, although this may be a myth. On 7 July 2014 10:48:29 "Merryl Wells" <merryl.wells@ntlworld.com> wrote: > Hi, I was born 1944 and given a NHS number that reflected the year or date > on which I was born so was easy for me to remember. However at some point > it was changed, can't remember exactly when but after I left school, so > don't think now it would be of any use for family research purposes. > > From > Merryl Wells of Luton, Beds. > E-Mail: merryl.wells@one-name.org > GOONS Mem. No. 1757 Reg. ONS: Bawtree; Gullick/ock, Moist/Moyst. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <jjgduffus@gmail.com> > To: "sog list" <sog-uk@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 8:21 AM > Subject: [SOG-UK] NHS Numbers > > > > > > âDear All > > > > I was. Just wondering if there is a wealth of hidden info in these > > numbers > > that we literally carry through life. > > > > Is there any good guide to their decoding > > > > Julian Duffus > > > > Sog member 1978 to present > > > > Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone. > > > > ------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > > SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > > in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message

Hi I always suspected my number, RLDL500, was more than just a co-incidence...my birth certificate, which was issued in Northampton at the beginning of 1945, was no. 500 ....thanks for confirmation ! Carole Sent from my iPad > On 7 Jul 2014, at 14:51, Dave Beakhust <dave@beakhust.com> wrote: > > At the time you and I were born, before the coming of the NHS, we were > issued with national identity numbers, that then went on to be the NHS > number, as following the end of the war,everyone had one. ID cards were not > scrapped till the fifties, after the NHS came in. > Yours and mine are in 2parts, letters, for the place and date of the > registration district of issue, and numbers, very conveniently normally the > "entry number" on the birth certificate. Check it if you did not spot this. > Mine was Brentford, 3rd quarter of 1943, entry number 365, so BAJR365. From > meeting others born in the same district within a year or two, the BA part > seems to be related to Brentford, the other two letters seem to change by date. > I believe that for "national security" reasons, no "decode" of these > letters exists (or perhaps it does but has not been released). > I don't know whether anyone has suggested a project to compile the old > idcard/NHS letters into a database, before people forget them, on the lines > of cardinal points in GRO indexes. Perhaps the 1939 registration database > will do this, but I would bet the published version will omit the letters > and numbers. > For people already living at the time the records were set up in 1939, a > different numbering scheme was used, often written as, say, 123.4, > where I understand the first bit was the household,the second your place in > it. Thus 4th person in household 123. > With no check digits, there is no protection against transcription error, > but the new system that replaced it in the nineties has such a protection. > There is also no handy correspondence with birth certificate, but I was > told that males and females could be distinguished, although this may be a > myth. > > >> On 7 July 2014 10:48:29 "Merryl Wells" <merryl.wells@ntlworld.com> wrote: >> >> Hi, I was born 1944 and given a NHS number that reflected the year or date >> on which I was born so was easy for me to remember. However at some point >> it was changed, can't remember exactly when but after I left school, so >> don't think now it would be of any use for family research purposes. >> >> From >> Merryl Wells of Luton, Beds. >> E-Mail: merryl.wells@one-name.org >> GOONS Mem. No. 1757 Reg. ONS: Bawtree; Gullick/ock, Moist/Moyst. >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: <jjgduffus@gmail.com> >> To: "sog list" <sog-uk@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Monday, July 07, 2014 8:21 AM >> Subject: [SOG-UK] NHS Numbers >> >> >>> >>> âDear All >>> >>> I was. Just wondering if there is a wealth of hidden info in these >>> numbers >>> that we literally carry through life. >>> >>> Is there any good guide to their decoding >>> >>> Julian Duffus >>> >>> Sog member 1978 to present >>> >>> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone. >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >>> in the subject and the body of the message >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >> in the subject and the body of the message > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message