The 1939 Register for England and Wales, was taken on 29 September
1939, just after the start of World War 2. Strictly speaking it’s not
classed as a census, but much of the information contained is similar.
The Register was used for the supply of ration books – so no registration, no rations. As a result mostpeople will be listed!
Find My Past released the 1939 Register, on 2nd November 2015, here:
www.findmypast.co.uk/1939register
You can view household transcripts, which include full dates of
birth, occupations, address & updated names of people in the
household.
As the 1921 census has not yet been released, and the 1931 census was
destroyed during an air raid on London and the 1941 census was never
taken it will be a very useful recource for genealogists.
You can search the records and see a preview page. To see the
detailed records you need to unlock a record. Unfortunately to do this
you need to buy credits (even if you have a Find My Past subscription).
There’s more information here:
www.findmypast.co.uk/1939register/1939-register-getting-started
Normally with censuses all of the individuals listed are unavailable
to view for 100 years and one day after the census being taken. The
information of some individuals’ has been redacted from the records,
meaning that when viewing a household, there may be one or more members
whose information is unavailable to view. There’s more about this on
Find My Past’s blog:
https://blog.findmypast.co.uk/redaction-and-the-1939-register-1406494638.html
If you have Irish ancestors, you'll find the online Catholic Parish Registers on the National Library of Ireland site useful:
http://registers.nli.ie
Fly around your family tree with a new interactive website
People
can explore their detailed family tree and grow its branches by sharing
information with relatives, thanks to new interactive website ZoomPast.
After
researching their family histories, people are often left with
sprawling family trees that are difficult to visualise and share. The
new website, www.ZoomPast.org, solves this problem by allowing huge and complex genealogies to be explored using an innovative zooming interface, similar to an interactive map.
The
family trees of famous and fictional people can also be explored on the
site, from Queen Elizabeth II:
and George Washington to Harry Potter.
Genealogies can be viewed from the perspective of any person in a given
tree, and a built-in social and sharing platform allows trees to be
shared and grown collaboratively or kept completely private.
Web: www.zoompast.org
I've made a free online course on Tracing Your Family Tree. The course can be done in any
order, but if you’re new to genealogy I would start at Part One and work
your way systematically through the course.
http://billpearson.co.uk/Genealogy
