Foiled by bureaucracy

 

 

Some things just make you want to tear out your hair. My quest to find out more about my family in Britain during the war era ran into a snag with the 1939 Register. I found the relevant entries for my paternal family as well as the entry for my grandfather on my mother's side. No entry could be found for my grandmother anywhere. Under my grandfather's entry and for the same address are two locked entries. Entries are locked if the person in the entry would be under 100 years old at this time and there is no proof of death.

My suspicion, a pretty strong one, is that those entries under my grandfather's are for my grandmother and mother. I contacted FindMyPast in an attempt to get the entry directly under my grandfather's opened by pointing out that, as the person in question was born in 1894, she would be over 100 years old (127 if my calculations are correct). The canned answer came back that I could submit proof of death in the form of a GRO certificate or equivalent from the jurisdiction in which the death took place. Sounds easy, right?

Not in this case. My grandmother died in Quebec in the late '60s. According to a blog post about obtaining Quebec certificates which I found through Généalogie Quebec's website, obtaining death certificates for the time in question would be a daunting if not impossible task. I'll continue to see if I can get anywhere with FindMyPast, the keeper of the 1939 Register, by pointing out the absurdity of keeping closed an entry for someone who would be 127 but something tells me that I should focus on a different area of my WWII research.

 

 

Sources:

FindMyPast – 1939 Register

Généalogie Quebec https://www.genealogiequebec.com/en/

Quebec death record information:                                                                                                                     https://www.genealogiequebec.com/blog/en/2021/03/31/quebec-birth-marriage-and-death-records/