The 1939 Register

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

National Library of Ireland - Catholic Parish Registers

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

Zoom Past

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

A guide to Tracing your Family Tree

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

Mobile Genealogy

It's amazing how smart phones can help genealogists do research these days.

You can use your phone to carry out research, scan documents, and share your findings.

Sandra Crowley gave a interesting talk at the RootsTech conference earlier this year, which you can watch on-line here:
http://rootstech.org/videos#video-player

There's even a web site:
www.mobilegenealogy.com
if you want to stay ahead in this rapidly changing area.

Forces War Records

Forces War Records provides searchable Military Records, Military War Articles & Military Genealogy History Data.

Web: www.forces-war-records.co.uk 

Deceased Online

Deceased Online is central database for UK burials and cremations.  You can search registers by Country, Region, County, Burial Authority or Crematorium free of charge.   If you register with Deceased Online, you can purchase credits online, which you can spend to access further information associated with any of the found records.


Depending on what has been provided by the originating authority, the further information might include:

• burial and cremation register entries
• digital scans of register pages
• scans of book of remembrance pages
• grave details and other interments in a grave 
• pictures of graves and memorials
• maps showing the exact locations of graves and memorials.

www.deceasedonline.com