This past week saw the release of the 1939 Register causing great excitement for families researching their ancestors in England and Wales.
The 1939 Register was taken because with war imminent, the government needed to issue National Identity cards to the population. The Register was used when rationing was being planned and eventually formed the basis of the National Health Service registration system.
The Register is important as it is the only national census type resource available from 1921 – 1951. The 1931 census was burnt and the 1941 census did not take place because of the war. The Register continued to be updated until 1991.
Things to bear in mind when searching the 1939 Register:
- The Register will tell you full name, address, date of birth, marital status, occupation and whether a person was a member of the armed forces or reserves.
- The Register will not tell you a place of birth.
- The Register does not include a person who was on active military duty.
- The Register will not show people who have not reached their 100th birthday unless they died before 1991. People who died after 1991 can be ‘opened’ by providing a death certificate.
- The Register includes people who had already been evacuated and were therefore not at their expected home address.
- The Register recorded name changes which took place between 1939 and 1991 such as marriage, divorce or adoption. Both names are shown on the record and index.
- The Registers for Scotland and Ireland are not included.
The actual records from the Register can be accessed for a fee from Findmypast or for free by visiting The National Archives. The indexes can however be searched freely online and will reveal full name, birth year, borough or district and county. It has therefore been possible to identify 52 people with the surname Brimer and 59 people with the surname Brymer. This does not take into account any transcription errors which will only become obvious when looking at the actual record or when searching for a specific person. It also does not indicate how many people of these surnames cannot be viewed because their birthday is less than 100 years ago and they did not die before 1991.
The highest density of both surnames was found in Durham. The table below shows which counties the families were living in.
| County | BRIMER | BRYMER |
| Bedfordshire | 2 | – |
| Berkshire | – | 1 |
| Cheshire | 2 | – |
| Cornwall | – | 1 |
| Cumberland | – | 1 |
| Devon | 2 | – |
| Dorset | – | 3 |
| Durham | 21 | 16 |
| Essex | – | 1 |
| Flintshire | – | 1 |
| Glamorganshire | 1 | – |
| Gloucestershire | – | 1 |
| Hampshire | 2 | 7 |
| Herefordshire | – | 2 |
| Isle of Wight | – | 2 |
| Lancashire | 10 | – |
| Leicestershire | – | 1 |
| Lincolnshire | – | 2 |
| London | 5 | 8 |
| Merionethshire | – | 1 |
| Middlesex | – | 3 |
| Northumberland | 3 | 1 |
| Surrey | 3 | 5 |
| Sussex | – | 1 |
| Worcestershire | – | 1 |
| Yorkshire East Riding | 1 | – |
| Total | 52 | 59 |
Only three Brimer and twelve Brymer women are shown as changing their name between 1939 and 1991. This number will obviously increase as more records are opened. There are also two men with both Brimer and Brymer names recorded and at least one case of a Brimer woman living with a Brymer man!
I am looking forward to examining the records in full to learn more about the families in 1939.
Brimer-Brymer database last updated at 2016-07-02 00:29:43 with 4028 census records and 2856 individuals