23,310 images & where grandma lived in 1939 ......... on Ancestry

All the news that's fit to sell, 1978

Now here is a cornucopia of opportunities.

Ancestry have made available over 23,000 prints and photographs which capture some of the most defining moments in our history, as well as displays of everyday life.

Along with these they have added the 1939 Register.

“The main collection from which images are drawn is the Hulton Collection, former archive of the British photojournalist magazine Picture Post. 

Originally created for publication in the Great British press, most images contain the original printed caption on the back, with detailed information often including names, places and locations of the photograph or print subject.”*

Loading the train, 1978

And then there is the 1939 Register, which was  "initially taken due to the onset of war with the purpose of producing National Identity Cards, the register later came to be multi-functional, first as an aid in the use of ration books and later helping officials record the movement of the civilian population over the following decades. 

The 1939 Register is an extremely important genealogical resource, not only for the rich detail and information recorded for each person and household, but also in helping to bridge a thirty-year gap in census data. 

Working the River, 1979

The census taken in 1931 was destroyed during the Second World War and no census was carried out in 1941 due to the ongoing conflict. 

The register, as held by The National Archives, contains data only for England and Wales and does not include records from households in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.

Enumerators collected the data on 29th September 1939. Volumes were organised by place (District or County - see codes below) and then by Enumeration District, represented by a four or five letter code followed by two numbers. These codes were largely based on the 1931 census enumeration units."

At the demonstration, 1985

So that is it.

I had hoped that Ancestry would have replied to my question about whether I could use the images on the blog, but they haven't got back to me as yest so instead, I have used some of mine which all date from the 1970s & 1980s.

Pictures; how we were were, Manchester & London in 1978-85, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Ancestry, www.ancestry.co.uk