I hear you, I hear you!! this is Not about the Beautiful Welsh Language. I am trying to find a person who was in Wales in 1945. Namely my Mother… If somebody could help me with finding census records registries etc etc I would be very grateful. With a war ongoing the freedom of movement was restricted and therefore people must have been registered at a certain address maybe helping out with the war effort, looking after kids or the elderly. All help would be gratefully appreciated. Thomas.
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I am being super-unhelpful and haven’t even looked anything up yet, but, the standard census years were 11,21,31,41,51… I am virtually sure that 41 was not taken due to other things on the collective mind!
Ciould you expand a little, Was your Mam born in 1945 or ??? If born then birth records are available on line I think, although it helps to be fairly specific on place!
You could try the 1951 Census and work backwards!
If you are saying your mam was working in '45, why not '44?? Actually records are very patchy until after VE Day, because people got bombed out, evacuated, joined a Service, were invalided out of one…and, the collective mind was more interested in the fighting aspect. My mam was called up in 1941 when about 6 months pregnant after having had an official Compassionate Discharge from the Wrens due to being pregnant! Records…er…bombed into oblivion, often!
ps Mam wanted to go to the office (she was 5ft nothing tall and I was a big baby, so she carried all before her at 6 months!) with the call-up papers and say, “My country needs me, here I am!” But her mam wouldn’t let her! A letter quoting the Discharge papers did quite well enough and got a ‘sorry you were troubled’ reply!
Edit: see later: census every 100 years, 1811, 1911, 2011…released after 100 years¡
I don’t think census records are released until 100 years later - the 1911 was the most recent one (which I used to find my family in Upper Bargoed!)
Thomas, do you have a vague idea of where your mother might have been (e.g. town or area) and her age? Local archives might be the best place to start - perhaps school records also?
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You are quite right! Sorry, mental block. Births, marriages and deaths can be searched but you do need some idea of place unless your Mam had a very unusual name! eg Jones not likely to give useful results!
Another thought, if you have a vague area in mind, is Facebook - lots of places have groups dedicated to studying the history of a particular locality or sharing reminiscences. Perhaps you might be able to find someone who knew your mother that way?
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Because of the war there were registration cards issued in 1939 and 1943 - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Registration_Act_1939
I’ve been doing some work on my family tree recently, so am signed up with ‘Find My Past’ and through this can see the available* 1939 registers (*explained in article above), which may or may not be of use to you - I can have a look for you, but I’d need more detail (names, date of birth, place of birth, etc), so let me know if you’d like me to. you can always PM me with the information if you’d rather not post it here.
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I may be wrong, but I do not recall having a Card, so I suspect you had to be a certain age. Maybe 5 which was official ‘starting school’ age. Being born in '41, the War ended before I was 5 in October '46!! I had a ration book, held by my Mam, as she or my Gran did the shopping. I never got to buy my own sweet ration!
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Hi there, thank you so much for your reply. What follows is a very brief history, I could write a book on my growing up in England, Its too much for this forum.My father bought my Mother Sarah back with him to Hastings from Wales after the war. This was all I have ever been told. When I saw my Birth Certificate for the first time in the 60s her name of course was on the BC under mother. we asked my old man …where is she…why wern’t we told…he never spoke about her,all he said was her mother was ill and wanted her back in Ireland, she left sometime in the early 50s.and a letter came sometime later saying she’d died, she was ill, I think she had Jaundis ?? This was a lie, she died in 1989. I never bothered to carry on searching and the like until later when I was 50 yrs old. After a bit of Detective work I did manage to find her ,BC…place of birth in Eire… and her grave. I spoke to people who knew her, but, they could not help me with anything about what she was doing in Wales.I am probably Flogging a dead horse, but, not being one to give up easily…stubborn is the word I believe…and never having seen a photo of her I thought maybe a record of her exists in some dark, dismal government office in some unused airfield or bomb shelter waiting to see daylight for the first time in 60 yrs.
Hi there, thank you so much for your reply. What follows is a very brief history, I could write a book on my growing up in England, Its too much for this forum.My father bought my Mother Sarah back with him to Hastings from Wales after the war. This was all I have ever been told. When I saw my Birth Certificate for the first time in the 60s her name of course was on the BC under mother. we asked my old man …where is she…why wern’t we told…he never spoke about her,all he said was her mother was ill and wanted her back in Ireland, she left sometime in the early 50s.and a letter came sometime later saying she’d died, she was ill, I think she had Jaundis ?? This was a lie, she died in 1989. I never bothered to carry on searching and the like until later when I was 50 yrs old. After a bit of Detective work I did manage to find her ,BC…place of birth in Eire… and her grave. I spoke to people who knew her, but, they could not help me with anything about what she was doing in Wales.I am probably Flogging a dead horse, but, not being one to give up easily…stubborn is the word I believe…and never having seen a photo of her I thought maybe a record of her exists in some dark, dismal government office in some unused airfield or bomb shelter waiting to see daylight for the first time in 60 yrs.
You can search the 1939 register on FindMyPast to find out if a person is on it without a subscription (but it only gives you the name (& maiden name) birth year and district you can’t access the full details or original image) The register was updated until 1991 which is why the records for people who died after this date or who are still alive have their record closed as they don’t know if these people are still alive (unless relatives supply a death certificate) and therefore kept private for data protection reasons.
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Thomas, how old was she when she was in Wales? If she wasn’t British, it seems unlikely she was in one of the Services. I wonder why she left neutral ( safe) Irish Republic to come to Wales where bombs fell in a number of places ( e.g. Swansea) if she was employed she might be on some sort of record?
Hi there, thank you so much for your reply. What follows is a very brief history, I could write a book on my growing up in England, Its too much for this forum.My father bought my Mother Sarah back with him to Hastings from Wales after the war. This was all I have ever been told. When I saw my Birth Certificate for the first time in the 60s her name of course was on the BC under mother. we asked my old man …where is she…why wern’t we told…he never spoke about her,all he said was her mother was ill and wanted her back in Ireland, she left sometime in the early 50s.and a letter came sometime later saying she’d died, she was ill, I think she had Jaundis ?? This was a lie, she died in 1989. I never bothered to carry on searching and the like until later when I was 50 yrs old. After a bit of Detective work I did manage to find her ,BC…place of birth in Eire… and her grave. I spoke to people who knew her, but, they could not help me with anything about what she was doing in Wales.I am probably Flogging a dead horse, but, not being one to give up easily…stubborn is the word I believe…and never having seen a photo of her I thought maybe a record of her exists in some dark, dismal government office in some unused airfield or bomb shelter waiting to see daylight for the first time in 60 yrs.
She was born in ( registered ) 1913 in Eire. 32 yrs in 1945
What I,m looking for in effect is simply…Sarah Bergin ( formerly Finlay) who was in Wales in 1945. Thats all I have to go on.
Hi Thomas,
I’ve done a search on FindMyPast using both Finlay and Bergin (and allowed for spelling variants). I’m afraid I didn’t find anything definitive (difficult without more info to crosscheck with), but here’s what I found -
There are 2 entries on the 1939 Register that are closest to the criteria we have -
Sarah Elizabeth Finnlay b. 31/12/1915. Single. Artificial Silk Worker. Living at 8 Garden Row, Mostyn, Holywell, Flintshire.
Sarah Bergin b.23/4/1913. Single. Domestic Servant. Living at 126 Grove Road, Wallasey, Cheshire.
I know neither of them fit exactly, but discrepancies in spellings and dates are part and parcel of all these records so can’t be ruled out in early stages.
Unfortunately I don’t have the extra subscription that allows me to look in detail at the Irish records, so I couldn’t crosscheck that side.
Sorry I couldn’t find anything better, but worth a try.
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I’ve asked a friend who is a professional genealogist if she has any ideas of sources that might be able to help you, and I’ll report back when I hear from her.
My only other thought is: I wonder whether ‘brought back from Wales’ means, actually, ‘collected from the ferry in Fishguard or Holyhead’? She might have been in Ireland during that time…
Anyway, if anything else occurs to me I’ll certainly post it here. And wish you lots of luck - I hope you’re able to find out more.
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My genealogist friend suggested FindMyPast as the best place to start as well. She also suggest company records, in case your mother was working?
You don’t mention marriage certificate - have you been able to find that? It might at least give you an idea of where she was living (but it depends on whether your parents were married before your father ‘brought her back’ from Wales).
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