Find Ancestors

...anything searchable before 1939? (edit: title was truncated)

Confirmation of existence / useability please.

My evidence to date:
Death certificate of great grandmother contains
Date of death 26/12/1939
Age at death 50
Date of Registration: 28/12/1939
Rank or profession: "wife of Frank Silvester Ellis, an aeronautical instructor"

As yet, I have no hint of FS Ellis being in the armed services, so I assume that he was a civilian instructor.
This, in turn implies that he had a pilot's licence, of which there may have been annual renewals, making it easy to find out if he ever ceased flying, on age/fitness grounds.

I am perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that he was ground-based, working in a classroom environment, even if that means there would be little sign in the written records.

The real question here is whether the records - being so recent - are open to public access.

Maybe refine the question by adding that the person for whom details are sought is long-since deceased (1954) and see if that aids in getting permissions.

I think it would be great if people could turn a vague family rumour into a solid memento, like a photocopy of their relatives' licence.


Mark

Hi Robert,

that's excellent, thanks for the info. I'll call them and report back what they said.


Mark

UPDATE:
Telephone number above is the main reception. After desciption of the query I went onto one of those "press 1..." style things. I think I went through option 1, second option 3, third option 1 and asked for the public service desk but was speaking to the main office.
I was given a contact name (not for publication) and the recommended email address was the fclweb@ one.

Please allow my thread to sink out of sight, so they do not get bombarded with queries. I specifically asked if archive searches were considered 'unusual' and was told (me paraphasing here) "yes - we don't mind doing them but aren't specifically staffed to do them on a routine basis".




SORTED