The 1939 Register

At the start of November “The 1939 Register” was released on the Find My Past website.  This register was a comprehensive survey of the civil population of England and Wales at the outbreak of World War 2.  The survey was taken on 29 September 1939, just 4 weeks after war was declared on Germany.  65,000 enumerators were employed to visit every house in England and Wales and record names, addresses, dates of birth, marital status and occupations of every person.  The information collected was used to issue identity cards, which had to be carried at all times during the war, and to set up Rationing books. Post war the register was used to issue NHS cards when the NHS was born.  After 1939 when a woman married her name was changed on The 1939 Register, thus the register contains both the woman’s married and maiden name.

The register is available to search on Find My Past and can be searched for free, but you see limited information.  However, if you want to see the original entry in its entirety a payment is required.

Because of data protection names of persons who were born after 1915 are hidden, unless they are known to have died. This does mean that many names are not available to search and on the register the data is blacked out.  Even with this limitation the register provides some interesting data. 

I have searched the register and can tell you the following about our family names

I have found 295 family members named on the 1939 register plus 26 women who were later to marry into the family.  The occurrence of the family name is as shown below

  

Surname	Number of Individuals
Titheridge	212
Titheradge	49
Tytheridge	14
Tidridge	7
Tutheridge	6
Teatheredge	2
Tedridge	1
Ones where I'm unsure ? Titheridge/Titheradge	5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I expected the spelling of the surname to be better than on censuses but alas no, there are 22 spelling variations of the surnames occurring (probably even more that haven’t been found).

The name variations are

Fitheridge; Litheridge; Teatheredge; Teatheridge; Tedridge; Teteridge; Tetheridge; Tettiridge; Thitheride; Tidridge; Tiheradge; Titheradge; Titherage; Titheridge; Titherridge; Tithridge; Tittheradge; Totheridge Tothridge; Tutheride; Tutheridge; Tytheridge.

 
The most popular family Christian names were William Annie Albert and Dorothy.

The distribution of the family was much as expected with most of the family living in Hampshire (35%) followed by London (14%).  Nearly all the individuals lived south of Birmingham with just 4% living in Warwickshire or further north

The top ten counties where family members lived were

County	Number of Individuals
Hampshire	104
London	41
Essex	25
Surrey	22
Sussex	20
Middlesex	17
Berkshire	9
Kent	8
Dorset	7
Isle of Wight	6

 At a town level the greatest concentration of family members was in Droxford Rural District with 26 individuals listed.

Town (Rural District or County Borough or Municipal Borough)	Number of Individuals
Droxford R.D.	26
Southampton C.B.	17
Gosport M.B.	11
Islington	9
Wanstead and Woodford M.B.	8
Portsmouth C.B.	7
Petersfield R.D.	6
Reading C.B.	6
New Forest R.D.	6
Winchester M.B.	6

If you have viewed The 1939 Register and found out anything interesting about your Titheridge / Titheradge etc  ancesters please add a comment to tell us what you have learnt.?