1939 Register

 Or as it is officially titled: The National Registration Act 1939.  Being the only census-like data available after 1921 for England and Wales, this is the closest to today as we can get.  And even that is incomplete as anyone registered with a birth less than 100 years from the date you access it has been redacted.  Good news is as entries age out, they are un-redacted... is that a word?

What about a 1931 Census you say?  Fire ate it.  1941? There was a war... and neither of those would be released until a 100 years after their collection date in any case.  So here we are: 1939.

Redacted entries can sometimes give us a hint at other household members - if adults born in the late 1800's or early 1900's have redactions in the same household, they would have to be younger than the 100 year threshold.  Children? Probably... maybe siblings or other family members like cousins, etc. but I always start with the assumption that those black lines indicate a child.  A good place to start.

What it does NOT contain is any military personnel, even if living at home. Or any military personnel billeted with civilians.  I will need to search else for those possibilities.

Another thing to remember is this is done by household for the purposes of creating a register for food rationing and tracking the population through the war upheavals.  So it was updated as things changed. For example, name changes when someone married and sometimes the dates.  Clarifications on initials.  All sorts of information.

Here is a clip as a rather standard example.  It also contains the first Sleeper in my FindMyPast search results: Ada M. Sleeper.  Thank you FindMyPast!

What you do not see because I do not provide the entire page, is that every residence on this page is listed under Hut Homestall Farm, Faversham, Swale R.D., Kent, England.   All the Sleeper entries on this page also are located at the same address, though not in the same residence.  I cannot determine from other previous page due to the first entry being redacted, if this is the beginning of Hut Homestall Farm or a continuation.  Looking at the visible entries it's alot of people...  a plethora of married domestic servants and children.  But I am only concerned with Sleepers, and only those that might continue the male line down to today.  Who do we have?

Living at address 79: Eleven in total in the Coambe (later Gornall) household we find:

• #6 Ada M Sleeper, female, b. 11 Mar 1911, married, unpaid domestic duties.
• #7 William B Sleeper, male, b 18 May 1935, single, at school. 
• #8 a redacted individual - perhaps another Sleeper?

Then we move on to address 80: Smith household of five.  

• #3 Pauline A Smith, later Sleeper, female, b.21 Sep 1923, single (later married), junior clerk advertising office.

Being curious, I searched for Hut Homestall Farm, but no joy.  Faversham is easily enough found.  Then view the National Library of Scotland maps I was able to search for Homestall in such a way as to actually find it.  I flipped through several overlays but nothing for that location looked densely built enough to house so many different families. Maybe 'hut' is merely referring to the type of abode on the farm?  makes sense to me.

Scrolling down the transcript page on FindMyPast, I find the map viewer, which kindly lets you swap between different historic maps for the area identified in the record you're looking at. 

Homestall 1888-1913 map via FindMyPast

Homestall 1937-1961 map via FindMy Past

Now, one can see the multitude of outbuildings in the later map.  This must surely be where our Faversham Sleepers resided.

Looking at a modern map, this time from Google satellite view:

Not so many 'huts' or cottages now. What is there is obscured by hedging.  In any case, I've scratched that locational itch.