Family Historian User Group

Prompted by finding an entry in the 1921 Census, I've followed them forward to 1939. The Register entry is unusual, as it has the usual listing where I would expect to find it, and a couple of pages later at the end of the book it is repeated (in a different hand), not in order, and along with a load of redacted entries. I've not seen that before, so can anybody hazard a guess as to the reason?

My understanding is that the later ones are overflow pages, and the bit that was overflowing was the mysterious, invisible part of the right-hand page. IIRC this contains "hieroglyphics" relevant only to the NHS - no idea of their meanings because they (apparently) weren't filmed or were editted off the version handed over. When that line was full, then an overflow entry was created at the end of the book (which I'm tempted to describe as an overflow bucket if anyone remembers those...)

Thanks Adrian, that makes sense. It’s not obvious to me why the couple needed an unusually long NHS entry. They didn’t have any major health issues that I am aware of (they were my mother’s aunt & uncle) and lived well into their eighties. Presumably the redacted entries were largely children at the time. It was working class Fulham, so not a local boarding school. Officialdom works in dark and mysterious ways...

Also explained here:

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hel ... -register/

Mark1834 wrote: ↑

07 Jan 2022 13:27

... It’s not obvious to me why the couple needed an unusually long NHS entry. They didn’t have any major health issues that I am aware of (they were my mother’s aunt & uncle) and lived well into their eighties. ...

Maybe because they lived that long, they went through several GP practices, different coding systems, etc, etc. In other words, my wild guess would be that the hieroglyphs were administratively, not medically, significant.

The National Archives article linked above also explains that the postings column was used for National Registration purposes as well. Possibly changes of address could have taken up some room in relation to that. My father's National Registration Identity Card contains several changes of address as he moved between several lodgings in Nottingham before being called up, and again after the war. The last address change was stamped in 1951.

Some of the digitised images from the register allow glimpses of the edge of the right hand page according, I assume, to the positioning of the register within the camera view when it was photographed. On the image of the page relating to my grandfather, the initial text in the postings column appears to be the first part of his Royal Navy pension number, so there may have been other information entered too?