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| National Registration Identity Card Scanned by J.P. Brettle Document in personal collection of J.P. Brettle [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
Ten years is the twinkling of an eye in genealogical time. Ten years is a lifetime while waiting for genealogical data to become available. Ten years is the period between each UK census.
For the genealogist and family historian a census can be a treasure trove of information. Well, a treasure trove when we can find our ancestors in it and a source of much frustration when we can't. The earliest useful national census was taken in 1841 and they were thereafter taken every ten years and, since personal census data (as opposed to statistical results) is not released for a hundred years, the last useful census was taken in 1911. In five years' time we will be able to access the 1921 census; after that, nothing for 1931 and 1941.
So why no 1931 and 1941?
Well, in 1942 the returns for the entire 1931 census went up in flames - you can read more about it on the National Archives web site. Then, by 1941 there was a war on and a census was scarcely a priority. This meant that no census was taken between 1921 and 1951.
Luckily, all is not lost. On 29 September 1939, twenty-nine days after World War II was declared, a National Register was compiled. It listed personal details of every civilian in Great Britain and Northern Ireland in order to issue identity cards, organise rationing and so forth. It was later used by the National Health Service (NHS) when it started in 1948 and the records remained with the NHS until 1991 to maintain National Health numbers.
Although it didn't have quite as much information as a census, it did have names, date of birth and occupation of all civilians at each address in the country. You can now access it through the FindMyPast web site and when you do, the Hundred Year Rule only allows details of people born over 100 years ago to be shown; the others are redacted with the words 'This record is officially closed'.
So when we searched, what did we find in the 1939 National Register?
Our Piercy Family at Pentrobin Parsonage
First came the entry for my father, giving his date of birth as 5 February 1905 (over one hundred years ago now!) and described as 'Clerk in Holy Orders'. Then my mother with her date of birth as 20 January 1903 and described as 'Unpaid Domestic Duties'—the standard description in the 1939 Register for a housewife.
Then we have a couple of 'Officially Closed' entries. Almost certainly these were myself (I may feel and look over one hundred, but I'm not!) and my sister Averil.
Next comes my aunt on my father's side, Elsie M[uriel] Piercy and known to us as 'Auntie Muriel', born 23 March 1910, single and of 'Private Means'. So what was she doing here? I don't remember her staying with us for long, unlike my aunt Marjorie on my mother's side. Marjorie came and stayed with us when we children went down with a childhood malady—chickenpox, measles, whooping cough?—and went on to help my mother bring up the six children. She was almost a big sister to me. As for the 'Private Means', Muriel was a rather fragile character, unlike her twin brother Maurice. Maurice became very comfortable financially—he had trained as an accountant and went to the Far East after the war, becoming partner of Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). Muriel never did marry and for most of her life Maurice had supported her financially; maybe this was already the case but it seems more likely at the time that she was being supported by her father Frank Piercy who lived until 1952.
Then we have Iris Aubrey, with her later married surname Tew add to the record afterwards. Iris was born in 1922, on the 8th of December, so she would have been almost seventeen at the time, and was single. She was described as 'Domestic Servant'. Other records suggest that she was born in the Rhondda, married Thomas Tew in Hawarden in 1943 and died in Chester in 1985 aged 63. At the time of their marriage he was serving in the RAF and she was working on the land; in the Women's Land Army perhaps. Thomas died in 2006 age 85. They had one child, David Thomas Tew, who died in 2006, four months after his father.
Finally we have Dora Henderson and Anne L Mather, both described as 'Teacher (Senior School)'. Dora was 44 and Anne 33. Were they being lodged because they were teaching at the nearby Church of England school, or was it simply a commercial arrangement? As always, family history discoveries raise as many questions as they answer.
Cross Farm, Penymynydd
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| Traction Engine and Threshing Machine Credit Liam Noonan, Creative Commons Licence |
The farm also had slightly less happy memories. I had just been given a very nice Yard-o-Led propelling pencil as a birthday present and wouldn't part with it so I took it with me over to Cross Farm when the threshing machine was at work. On my return home that pencil was no longer in my pocket! I went back and searched and searched but there was no sign of it among all the scattered straw. That was an expensive lesson!
Memories, Memories
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| Public Domain from Wikimedia Commons |
- My first memory of a Christmas tree - in the hall at Hawarden Castle nearby, the home of the Gladstone family.
- Going through the newly-opened Liverpool Tunnel between Liverpool and Birkenhead in a car—I wonder whose? I don't remember us having one. I kept the ticket we were given when we paid our tunnel toll for years after - for the life of me I can't remember why it held such importance for me.
- A more serious memory; the entire family going to the radio to listen to the Prime Minister announcing that war had been declared on Germany.
- In contrast to that, the beauty of the celandine field in front of the Parsonage in full blossom announcing the arrival of spring and the excitement of my first school days at the local primary school next to the church.
When the bureaucrats filled in this single page of a supposedly dry old record they could hardly have anticipated the memories it would have brought flooding back!
We all belong to an ancient identity. Stories are the rivers that take us there.
Frank Delaney
