If you have relatives from England and Wales, the 1939 National Register is a great resource for finding additional information about your family. The Register was compiled in 1939 to collect data which was used to make Identity cards and ration books during World War II. Since England did not compile a census in 1941 and a fire destroyed the 1931 census during the war, these records are very important for English and Welsh research between 1921 and 1951.
The 1939 National Register includes names, addresses, gender, complete birth dates, marital status, and occupations, but it does not contain birth locations and family relationships. Because the government updated names and addresses in the Register until 1952, it also includes the married names of many women. The National Health Service also added other updates until 1991!
Some entries in the Register are “closed” and blanked out if the person was born less than 100 years ago and there is no proof of death. On the index pages, these people are listed as “Unknown.” The 1939 National Register indexes are found in both Ancestry and FindMyPast websites. Both sites provide access to the digitized original records and use available birth and death records to update the indexes at least once a year.
I discovered my great aunt Mary Kate Frost Sargeant and her family in the 1939 National Register. I was able to find their complete address at 63 & 65 Victoria Street, Ipswich, England; one of those addresses was the butcher shop owned and operated by her husband George Edward Sargeant. His name was incorrectly transcribed as Ernest Sargeant in the Register! Perhaps George did not know his birth year because the Register shows that he was born in 1872 while his birth registration indicates that he was born in 1871.
Living with George Edward were his wife, Mary Kate Sargeant, and his daughter, Ethel Annie Sargeant Judd Orbell. In the original document she is listed as Annie E. Judd, a widow. Sometime after her remarriage in 1941, her record was updated to Ethel Annie Orbell. I did not know that the family ever had boarders, but the record shows two unrelated men, David James and Thomas Pidwell living in the household. It also shows that George Edward was a “Retired Pork Butcher” and Ethel Annie and Kate Mary both did “Unpaid Domestic Duties”—sounds glamorous, doesn’t it?
I also found my father’s cousin, Henry Frost, and his wife, Gladys, in the Register. My second cousin, who is still living, has his record closed and his information is blacked out in the document.
How can the Register help you? It can provide complete names including married names, complete addresses in 1939, and complete birth dates. Because the latest British census that is available is from 1921, it may be able to help you find undiscovered family members born after 1921. For example, just recently our friend, Janet Helland, found an unknown daughter, Pamela Holt Armson, as she was attaching the Register as a source to Pamela’s mother, Gwendoline Crawley Holt. Pamela’s name, updated married name, birth information, and address were contained in the Register, and Janet was able to find other sources after her original discovery to document Pamela’s life–her husband’s name and their marriage date.
President Nelson has told us, “We are part of a great movement—the gathering of scattered Israel.” The 1939 National Register is just another tool we can use to accomplish this most important work! For more information about the 1939 National Register:
Hammond, Linda. “The Hidden Secrets of the 1939 England and Wales National Register,” RootsTech 2021, URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=cItbXTR-92U
The National Archives. “How to Look for Records . . . the 1939 Register,” URL: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/1939-register/
– Marianne Bates, Consultant, Granite FamilySearch Center