State Pension

[Olde Crone Holden]

Um, don't know Pippa, but I'm off to google!

OC

[Muggins in Sussex]

I know this sounds like I'm being argumentative but in an age before computers how would they cross reference birth certificates with death certificates taking into account that people could have moved anywhere to call them up?

I've no idea Pippa!

Head spinning more than ever!!!!!

[Pippa Doll]

Same website but explains how they knew people existed.

National Registration

National Registration Act, 1915By spring 1915 it had become clear that voluntary recruitment was not going to provide the numbers of men required. The Government passed the National Registration Act on 15 July 1915 as a step towards stimulating recruitment and to discover how many men between the ages of 15 and 65 were engaged in each trade. The results of this census became available by mid-September 1915.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Suggests they used standard census information too!

Somewhere in the back of my brain I am remembering (?) that all men of fighting age had to register at the Town Hall.....presumably once they had worked their way through that lot, they went around the streets looking for men of fighting age who were not in uniform???

OC

[Muggins in Sussex]

Presumably they didn't have to produce birth certs to register, as so many seem to have registered under-age

[Anne in Carlisle]

Do you have to have a birth certificate to get a pension? I have just started getting a state pension ;) and it all semed to happen more or less automatically. I didn't have to get my BC out.

Anne

[Olde Crone Holden]

If you have a full employment record, possibly you don't have to produce a bc, although I would have thought you would THESE days?

OC

[Anne in Carlisle]

Nope. I was self employed and they've been writing to me with pension forcasts for about two years. All I had to do to finally confirm I wanted to draw the pension (and not defer it) was answer a few questions on the phone. Also quite a few of my 'contribution years' were Home Responsibility Allowance' but they did the calculation automatically.

Anne

[Uncle John]

Anne - as a self-employed person you would (I hope!) be paying self-employed NI contributions. S/E contributions don't entitle you to a lot but they do give you your pension. So the DWP would have your NI number somewhere.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Yes, Uncle John, I was paying while I was working! Even though I was getting a miniscule amount from my part time SE I knew it would be worth it in the end. The pension amount just about equals what I averaged as income as I slacked off towards retiring so I'm a happy bunny!

Anne

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Last year I helped a lady to try and find her grandmother's birth record as gran was approaching 100 and they wanted to apply for a "telegram" from HMtQ.

The State Pensions people said they would usually inform the palace themselves if asked by the family, but would not confirm this on this occasion (because they didn't have an exact dob - no birth cert had ever been produced by the lady) until six weeks before the 100th birthday, by which time it would be too late for the family to put in their own request. The Pensions people were able to confirm when the lady had first received her state pension, and the date was within a month of the date my contact believed to be her grandmother's 60th birthday, back in 1967.

Her birth was swathed in secrecy and we spent hundreds of hours trying to establish various facts all within that horrible 1901-1911 time frame!

Evantually (after we had given up) we heard that the Pensions department had decided they WOULD put her name forward for the telegram, despite no dob.

Unfortunately my contact's grandmother died about two weeks before her birthday........

All this because I went into our local haberdashers to buy a zip

[Anne in Carlisle]

Oh! what a shame, Merry.
Anne

[Olde Crone Holden]

Did you manage to get a zip, Merry?

OC

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Did you manage to get a zip, Merry?

OC

Yes, but I never had time to replace the broken one, because I was too busy trying to find the missing birth record!! The zip is still in a drawer and the skirt went in the bin a few months ago :(

[Little Nell]

What a story lies behind a simple bit of metal - and Merry is the only one in the know. When you empty out someone else's drawers you don't know what tales are attached to the humblest household items!

[Bee]

Sorry I've come into this a bit late - just been doing some 'proper' FH stuff! ;)

When my Dad needed evidence of his age (iin the 1950's), I suppose to register for future State Pension or occupational pension, he had to write to the church in Canada where he'd been Confirmed, and get a letter confirming the age he'd stated at that time, as he cwas unable to trace any registration of his birth. (I've found his birth cert online since then - he'd been told a 'tall tale' about his birth, like so many.)

Incidentally, I've just been in contact with the church and got a bit more info about where he lived at that time - thrilling to zoom in on GoogleEarth, and see the house he'd lived in!

Back to State Pension - did you know that if you defer your pension for a year, you'll get an additional 10.4% on your pension - for life! That's 10.4% for each year you defer - nearly 21% for two years! Or a lump sum, if you prefer.

Bee.