The Most Recent Census covering Northern Ireland

[Elwyn Soutter]

Requesting the 1939 Register Northern Irish records sounds painfully long winded. Does anyone actually use that method? Do you pay for it?

Thanks all.

Yes, plenty of people have used it. It’s free and quite quick.

The reason it’s not more readily accessible is because the information is all mixed up. On the English Register the personal information is on the left hand page and medical on the right, so it was easy to ignore the medical information (which has not been released to the public) and just scan the left hand pages. In the version used in NI the medical and personal information is all on the one page. So an inky clerk has to go through and blank out the medical stuff before it can be released. Putting it on-line would involved a huge amount of work, and is not viable.  So your only option is to write to PRONI if you want the information on the Register.

[Leon47]

Thanks to all who replied and to Elwyn for those links. I must confess to not clicking the one mentioning the 1939 Register because I already knew about that and didn't think it would give general Census info. which it does. I should have checked.

Thanks for clarifying things folks. I'm going to try a PRONI search, within the 1939 Register and see what happens.

[Kiltaglassan]

I'm going to try a PRONI search, within the 1939 Register and see what happens.

The best of luck, and come back and let us know how you got on. 

[Leon47]

Will do.

[Jon_ni]

https://historyhubulster.co.uk/census-1937/ is another link with the same 1926 & 1937 pdf summary reports as on NISRA. The introduction explains what was omitted in more limited census to bridge the gap between the 1926 and the 1941 (which got cancelled) - it omitted questions related to occupation and industry.

See also the summary https://nisra.gov.uk/statistics/2011-and-earlier-censuses/history-census which has a further link to a pdf Chapter 2 – A Brief History of the Census in Ireland/Northern Ireland from the Registrar General Northern Ireland Annual Report 2011

Equivalent for the Republic https://cso.ie/en/census/censusthroughhistory/
The non-existant 1926 census householder forms for the 6 counties of N.I. were of course different from that we will get to see for the then 'Irish Free State'.

1939 Register that Elwyn posted previously and you have seen
https://irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/1939-national-register.html with the timeline of 20th Century census taken in N.I to 1951 and explaining the 1939 format.
The proceedure for requests is essentially unchanged since 2010 https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-on-northern-irish-1939-national.html
https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2010/03/1939-northern-irish-foi-request.html

On the English Register the personal information is on the left hand page and medical on the right,

and those are summary books compiled from householder forms which were then destroyed (in the same way the 1841-1901 census for England and Wales are summary books and only the 1911 & 1921 actual original forms filled in by the householder themselves).
https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/9906/what-happened-to-the-original-household-schedules-used-to-produce-the-1939-regis

An example of the N.I. register can be seen on the toolkit link - it is a card headed 'Transcript of Application for Ration Books' for each house/one family, not multiple households in a street - which would again make it much more labourious for a commercial company to digitise and name index. Perhaps they will take it on after 1939 when everyone will be over 100 and nothing has to be redacted. I'm not sure of the extent/duration of updates to the N.I cards with surname changes after marriage/s as done in England. And the unseen right page in England must have NHS death annotation codes up to 1991 hence people known to have died 1970 aged 40 are visible (section 9.2 of https://nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/1939-register/ ). That proceedure evidently stopped earlier in N.I. have seen one with the name scored out annotated 1950 and Cancelled but the National Registration Act was still in force & everyone had to carry an ID card and keep the authorities informed of address changes until 21 Feb 1952. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Registration_Act_1939 and https://familyhistory.co.uk/1939-register/
There are some interesting replies to the genealogy-stackexchange question, that I had not read before.

[Leon47]

Thanks for that. I'll have a read tomorrow.

[Jon_ni]

I'm going to try a PRONI search, within the 1939 Register and see what happens.

I've never found it in the eCat. There there is no surname index, you essentially need to provide the street or Townland of residence, then they manually find the household.

Back in 2010 "the hundreds of volumes did not have an index, a manual search had to be conducted on a page by page basis for the information" I recall a blog or news saying PRONI had created a street index for Belfast themselves to aid locating the correct volume/box

A list of the N.I 3 letter prefix codes can be found on https://whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_request_for_1939_nat

[Leon47]

Well, I've had a reply about my FOI request.

The text of the reply email said they could find nothing based on the information I supplied - a persons name, DOB and last address. They said the person couldn't be found in the Register unless I knew her address at that time (which is one of the things I'm trying to find out).

However there were two attachments, one was a letter saying that they did find some related information. The other attachment was four jpgs worth of pages headed "TRANSCRIPT OF APPLICATION FOR RATION BOOKS Northern Ireland", each dated 27/9/1939 and one of them is of the same address as I stated in my request (but doesn't show the individual concerned, so I at least know that she wasn't living at the family home in 1939).

It's good to have those documents because they confirm some things I know and adds people/details I didn't. Although they don't give household status (husband, wife etc) they do give full dates of birth which is very useful.

So, all in all it was well worth the asking and PRONI did actually do some general searching for me.

[cwatterson]

One suggestion I have is to check newspapers around the time for the address to use in requesting 1939 register records. I found references to a family address and sure enough requesting the records for that address with expected residents, I got a useful list that included corroboration of death date (ration book ended) and of course date of births which the 1911 census didn't have, and I was unsure of the potential birth registrations for those great-great-grandparents (DOB allowed pretty much confirmation of one I had identified as very likely, unfortunately the other DOB not as much use yet).

Another family address had redacted lines for two household members I know are deceased - but at this stage probably easier to request again for the unredacted version once their "age" hits 100.

Elwyn or others - do you know what proof you need to include to get unredacted lines for those unfortunately deceased rather than living to be 100?