Today (November 2nd) saw the long-awaited release of the 1939 Register by Find My Past.
This register served as an emergency census at the outbreak of World War II and was used in part to handle applications for ration books. It is free to carry out a search, but it will cost you £6.95 to view a full page from the original Record.
This register is a fantastic resource because, after the 1911 census, it is the most up-to-date record of the population that is accessible for all to see. This Register will give you, among other things:
Names of all people living in a household.
Dates of birth.
Occupations.
Marital Status.
While the release at Find My Past covers only England and Wales, the Northern Irish edition is held by PRONI and is available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. If you send off a quick message using PRONI's online enquiry form with the names and addresses of the people you would like to find in the 1939 Register, then PRONI should have no problem in releasing their entries to you.
However, both PRONI and Find My Past only release information covering those born over 100 years ago, so you will have tosupply the death certificates at your own costif you wish to obtain the entries for anyone who is deceased but was born less than 100 years ago.
Personally, I am thrilled by this release. My great-great grandmother moved to Liverpool in the early 1900s and I never knew her date of birth. Now, thanks to the 1939 Register, I can check off one more item on my Family History Bucket List.
As with any database that involves transcribing old handwriting, there are some errors to be found in the names, but thankfully the Advanced Search facility allows the public to search by Street Name and other options to help locate the people you wish to find.
The folks over at Find My Past really deserve more thanks than I can give them. This was a huge project to undertake, and no doubt required a great deal of funding and hard work to see through. The contribution this will make to twentieth-century genealogical research cannot be overstated.
I first came to learn about the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) when I enquired about any surviving records for the old Belfast Workhouse, as I
knew that my great-grandmother had been born there in May 1900. While reading
through discussions about the Workhouse on Belfast Forum, I kept seeing this
five-digit acronym and decided to see for myself what is was all about. The
official website told me that all I needed to visit was a piece of formal
identification, so off I went the next day on my first trip, armed with my
Passport and not a clue of what to do when I got there.
It was as straightforward as
everyone made it out to be: go in the revolving front door, speak to the staff
at Reception, fill in a 1-page form, show your ID, sit for a photo, and voila:
you are a full-fledged PRONI member.
I remember being unquestionably intimidated by the scale of this building. It isn’t big in any grand,
skyscraper sort of way, but right from the moment of entry you get the sense of
what a large undertaking had and was still going on in order to hold all of the
information that is contained within its walls. I happened to be visiting with
a friend, but for any solo first-timers, it is easy
to feel isolated and unsure of what to do. So, if you go there alone:
My first tip: make
sure that you have pressed your membership card against the keypad at
reception before you venture upstairs. After literally hundreds of visits, I still get to the Search Room,
swipe my card, realise it is not activated, and then have to trek back
down to Reception.
My second tip: spend some time by yourself on the computers
in the Search Room that let you browse the entire PRONI index. You will do yourself a massive favour if
you spend some time getting to know what types of materials PRONI holds, how to
order them up, and even what the reference codes mean (I feel like I should
have BG/7 tattooed on my forehead at this point.)
My third tip: bring some loose change with you.
For little over £1, you can get a photocopy card with 5 credits. This is a
godsend for when you want to print off records held on microfilm (e.g.
baptisms, marriages, grave purchases.) Also, the nearest ATM is at the Odyssey
Arena, so unless you want to be running back and forth across Titanic Quarter
every time you want a scan of a 1903 street directory, try to remember to stick
a few silver coins in your pocket.
Other than that, PRONI is what you
make of it. If you spend half a day there, you will hear accents from North
America, Canada, Australia, Eastern Europe, Asia, and anywhere else that a
long-gone Irish clan lay down some roots more than a lifetime ago.
PRONI can be particularly useful
for tracing more recent ancestors, especially compared to the pricier General Register Office office in Belfast city centre. For example, I had been told about a
great-great-aunt who I never knew about, but wanted to uncover as much as
possible. I didn't have enough to go on to find her in the 1911 census, so I was at a loss where to start. But finding her address on a 1916 school record for my
great-grandmother (yep, *that* one) I was able to go through the directories held at PRONI and open for free consultation at all times in the Search Room. I went through them one-by-one and found her at that 1916 address all the way up until 1944.
Then, travelling a whole 4 feet to the microfilm reel for Milltown’s burial
records, I scanned through the pages for 1944, and within a few minutes I had
found her date of death and grave-site - all without spending a penny.
Personally, the most exciting set of records held by PRONI is the 1939 National Register. After 1911, it is the nearest thing to a census that we have, as it will give the names, ages, and occupations of each person at a given address. Using the online enquiry form, you can apply for access to your family's entry, provided you have an exact or close estimation of their address. It is hoped that the entire Register will soon be available to view digitally, but until then, PRONI is the only way you are going to find out how your Northern Irish family was faring at the outbreak of World War II and introduction of ration books.
Redacted copy of my paternal grandparents' entry.
PRONI is and will hopefully remain the first port of call for anyone wanting to research Irish history. It holds millions of records in what must be an endless storage area(think of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark) and yet, I had never heard of it before March 2013. In a nice twist of fate, I wound up working next door just 6 months later, and since then I continue to use as many lunch-breaks and early finishes as possible to get lost in its archives.
