Explore the updated 1939 Register and more

4-5 minute read

By Daisy Goddard | March 31, 2023

worthing church

From Worthing burials to the 1939 Register, there's so much to explore this week.

We've added a total of 137,376 records this week, with newly opened 1939 Register records and burial records from Worthing, Sussex.

Here is a full rundown of all that's new.

1939 Register

Anyone familiar with the 1939 Register knows what a valuable resource it is. With descriptive employment information, home address and more, it provides the kind of rich details that family historians covet.

This week, we've opened 90,809 records in the 1939 Register which have recently passed the 100-year rule. Findmypast is the first to make these records available - so be sure to explore them today.

A little digging has revealed some famous names among these new additions.

We found Terence Alexander, the actor best known for playing Charlie Hungerford in Bergerac. He was born on 11 March 1923. In 1939, Terence is listed in the entry for Yorkshire's Knaresborough Hospital.

Terence Alexander 1939

Terence Alexander in the 1939 Register.

A closer look reveals that Terence wasn't a patient at the hospital. His parents Patricia and Joseph Edward (born in 1889 and 1898 respectively) were the master and matron of the institution - and the family listed the hospital on Stockwell Road as their place of residence.

Another notable person in this release is Joy Lofthouse, a pioneering female pilot who is known for her work with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War.

In 1939, she went by her maiden name, Joyce Gough. Aged 16, she was reportedly looking for her first job. Interestingly, her father's occupation was a 'rabbit trapper'.

Sussex Burials

We added 46,567 new records to our Sussex Burials set this week. These transcriptions cover the Worthing local authority area for the period 1850-2012. Like the others in this set, they contain details like name, birth year, age at death, burial date, and church dedication.

Some records also contain extra notes, detailing titles, places of residence, occupations, relatives' names, marital status and workhouse status.

Durrington Cemetery

Mourners at Durrington Cemetery. Worthing Gazette, 29 October 1947.

With section, row, and grave number included, these records may be able to help you track down the location of your ancestors' graves.

Take the record of Elizabeth Sarah Albry, who was buried in 1948, for example. For Durrington Cemetery, where Elizabeth is buried, a map is provided. This makes it straightforward to find where exactly in the cemetery she resides.

More newspaper stories than ever before

With six new titles and updates to 96 existing titles, our newspaper publishing has had a busy week.

Among this week's new titles is the Daily Malta Chronicle and Garrison Gazette, which is our first ever from the island of Malta. This weekly publication was established in 1884 to deliver general news to British servicemen stationed in what was then British-controlled Malta.

Each issue contained eight pages, which included weather reports, the latest telegrams and birth, marriage and death notices. It featured news from Malta as well as from the wider British Empire.

Among our updated titles is the Lincolnshire Free Press, to which we've added 67,000 pages from intermittent years between 1871 and 1999.

Whether you're looking for an insight into the lives of your 19th-century ancestors or tracing relatives from the not-so-distant past, delve into our archive's 66 million pages. To browse a specific title, just head over to the newspaper collection and filter your search by newspaper.

Here are all the newspaper pages we added this week.

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