Free access now to 1939 Register on Ancestry. (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Wednesday, May 09, 2018, 13:53 (2384 days ago) @ hawdon

Hi all, I've just received an email newsletter from Ancestry advising they're currently offering

"Free access to the 1939 Registry – 32 million new records to explore. The 1939 Register is one of our single biggest collections, so we’re celebrating with free access all weekend. The 1939 Register collated the names, addresses and key details of everyone in the UK. With the 1931 census destroyed and the 1941 census never taken, it’s a vital and significant source of information on the UK population from the mid 20th Century."

Free Access to the 1939 Registry started today, 9th May, and continues until midnite of Sunday 13th May 2018.

Use this link to start: https://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=61596&o_xid=87490&o_lid=87490...

Note that our parents and their generation may not be visible, if it's thought they may still be alive. Least I hope that's why my efforts failed when I tried to find them a few years ago. (Edit: Yep, found them now, yay!!)

Ancestry notes,
"Images have been redacted to protect the privacy of those still alive and we will be annually adding records for those with birth dates older than 100 years or if a record of the death has been reported to The National Archives. Images will also be updated to reflect the opening of the record. All indexes have been created from redacted images as provided by The National Archives and as such, some indexes may not include all information as originally recorded, where it is obscured from view."

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This comes as a pleasant surprise to me as I thought the 1939 Register was only available via FindMyPast, and was about to take-out a short FMP subscription purely for the Register.

In the usual manner any new users will need to register their name and email address beforehand, but nothing more and no requests for payment, unless you stray away from the free datasets when using Ancestry website. Registering will also mean you'll receive occasional and useful newsletter emails advising of events such as this, or informational research guides, and so on, but no spam (altho' most of their emails nowadays are promoting their DNA service).

Hoping this helps, Jeff.