8 replies to this topic

[RobMk2a]

Is there a way to trace addresses / names from phone numbers attached to adverts back in the early 1960's.

For example I'm interesting in finding out who was selling a car from WIMbledon 4399 in February 1961. Is there an online database (such as ancestry or similar) or would I need to find a phone book from 1961 and either read the phone book! or make educated guesses.

Thank you

Rob Pennington

[Allan Lupton]

The London telephone books are available online somewhere (can't recall where, but I found them quite easily last year) but then, as now, you would have great difficulty searching by number rather than by name. At the time you're interested in you have the geographical area already decoded for you but that was not always as easy (there were phone exchanges/areas named after poets, plants, etc.)

[Vitesse2]

Most UK phone books for 1880-1984 are available through Ancestry. However, if you don't have at least an idea of a name to work with they're impossible to search, since 'surname' is one of the required search fields. If you have a business name you can usually 'spoof' the search: if you were looking for (say) Monaco Motors in Watford, then you'd put 'Monaco' in the surname field and 'Motors' as a first name, since the surname search only looks at the first word in each entry and treats any subsequent words or initials in bold as first names.

 

You can browse them online too; I've just looked at what is probably the relevant one for Wimbledon in 1961 (Outer London South - Kent & Surrey). However, it consists of 989 individual page scans, of which roughly two-thirds are Surrey ...

[RobMk2a]

Thank you for your help- it doesn't look easy, if there was a method it could produce some interesting leads.

Rob

[Peter Morley]

If you are lucky and the owner was a prolific seller/advertiser of cars you can sometimes find another advert of theirs with a car who's history is known and work it out that way!

[RobMk2a]

Peter good suggestion, the car for sale is well described but I think the seller was an individual not a trader, it also looks as though he may have asked Chequered Flag to sell it at the end of the year.

Vitesse - can you send me a link to browse the phone directories online (I can only see ancestry / who appear to have a poor feedback) there are one of two names I could check.

Thank you for your help.

Rob

[Vitesse2]

Sorry Rob, didn't make clear that I accessed it via Ancestry.

 

As this might help others too - start at the Ancestry home page and click on search. In the 'special collections' panel on the right click on  'Schools, Directories & Church Histories' > 'Telephone Directories' > 'British Phone Books, 1880-1984'. You'll see the various browsing options, starting with a 'dates' dropdown. Older directories can sometimes cover vast areas - in 1940 for example there's one which includes all subscribers west of a line from Portsmouth to Gloucester! The whole of Scotland and Northern Ireland are in one volume too.

 

That may be the source of some of the complaints about Ancestry, since when I've searched for names it has often found the right person, but it will do odd things like saying (for example) that Bedford is in Cambridgeshire or Northamptonshire: if using the person search, don't use a specific county to narrow the field, leave it at a wider area and use your common sense! You may find it more helpful to search from the main search page and use that to narrow down or broaden the options.

 

BT's Archive in Holborn - the source of those scans - is also usable by researchers, but is only open for very limited hours: http://www.btplc.com...tgrouparchives/

[RobMk2a]

Thank you very much.

Rob

[Stephen W]

Another aid to the search are old programmes. Often the place of residence is listed and may help narrow down who is selling a particular car.