The Knot Tied
Brigadier W H Cunningham, CBE DSO VD, Officer Commanding the forces in Fiji, taking the salute during the Anzac Day parade in Suva – Photograph taken by an unknown photographer. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch :Photographs relating to World War 1914-1918, World War 1939-1945, occupation of Japan, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Ref: PA1-q-294-057-518. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23075355
“Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.”
For those of you interested in undertaking Marriage searches, note that the marriage must have occurred at least 80 years ago. A search for marriages occurring just before, during or just after the war will therefore produce no result and won’t for some years to come.
Verifying date of marriage
Not content with what you have already you may wish to try and verify marriage details, the moreso if you are in the process of compiling a family tree.
Note: you will be unable to access any marriage details which are not at least 80 years prior to the date of your search. So, as at today, I cannot access any details post 6 July 1944. For the moment that will preclude a search on many who are on the Freedoms Call roll.. Again though, more and more searches will be freed up as time passes.
Let’s look at one Arthur Chillas Henderson to see if we can find his marriage details:
To start with I am entering in the information I have and entering a date range 27/1/1920 to 26/1/1940. This throws up a registration number: 1926/1761 and his wife’s maiden name. Drilling down reveals they were married on 31 March 1926. A certificate of marriage can now be ordered if one so wishes.
Update: I have run a check of most entries in the two large rolls, looking at those servicemen and women who may have married between January 1920 and November 1942. This pulled up a surprising number of results, as regards names of spouse; always a bonus for those undertaking genealogical research.
Further update: In an attempt to update parental details where necessary, e.g perhaps only the initials of one or both parents was known, as update was run through both rolls for all service personnel, born pre 1917. The search was confined to the years 1900-1916 and yielded up quite a few more parents’ christian names.
I hope to undertake further similar exercises in 3-4 years time.