In the UK most records have a 100 year embargo on them. So for example you can only see certain Census records. Some Family History sites are now offering the 1939 survey. But any living people are excluded. Though you can ask for them to be revealed, presumably only to family members only...
I have just started a thread on another section that would I think explain this event. Your subconscious memory uses the brain's capacity to search faces of people, so to know who to trust and who not to. In your case it was that powerful that it spread to your conscious mind and you knew who...
I believe that people tend to remember past lives, without being hypnotised etc, because they need to understand something in there past life that impacts on this life.
Aside from that I think there is a big debate on the other "side" as to if it is necessary for persons to know who they were...
Not really, but it will either confirm or deny how many people and who anyone was in a previous life. As long as you have good eyesight anyone will be able to do it.
I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but there is one possibility why there might be so many Napoleons or Cleopatra's past life memories. Because they were Napoleon etc. Just NOT the real Napoleon. As an historian myself I know that mental institutions of the past were full of people who...