In 1995 I bought a 1934 suburban, semi-detached house in Wolvercote, North Oxford that was like a time capsule. In this article, I describe how I discovered not only the history of my house but who lived in my house, using the 1939 Register and other family records. From my deeds and searches in birth and death records, I found that the people who lived in my house before me were Vernon Victor Collett (1900-1960), his wife Cecilia (nee Wells, 1897-1995) and their sons Basil…
The year 1837 is a crucial one for genealogists because that's when the General Register Office (GRO) was established in the UK. For the first time, a central national index of all births, marriages and deaths registered in England and Wales was formed.This landmark moment in British history has helped millions explore their family trees ever since and made finding family in Victorian Britain relatively straightforward. 1. Start with birth certificates: Birth certificates will be one of the first types of…
For family historians, the 1939 Register is a veritable goldmine of information on ancestors who were in England and Wales at the outbreak of the Second World War. But what makes it one of the most exciting sources for tracing your family's records? It fills a 30-year census gap: First and foremost, the 1939 Register is the closest record set we're going to get to a census for a while. The next census due to be released is the 1921 census and we…