The 1939 Register was taken on 29 September and provided the government with information about the population at the outbreak of the Second World War [note 1]. There are 2843 records for Yeo and variant surnames [note 2]. The records can be searched at Ancestry or FindMyPast. A subscription is required, and images of individual pages can be viewed [note 3]. There is a facility to report transcription errors.
The equivalent in Scotland and Northern Ireland was known as the National Identity Register. These records are not yet searchable online.
The 1939 Register was used as a reference source for issuing identity cards during the war, as well as when the social security system and National Health Service were set up in the late 1940s. For these purposes, it was annotated with the new surnames of women who later married, and other information was marked against some of the entries. Separate records were kept of births from 30 September 1939, of people demobilised from the armed forces or the Merchant Navy, or who immigrated.
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Notes
1. Many men who had joined the armed forces or the Merchant Navy and who were already abroad or at sea are not listed. Patients in psychiatric hospitals are listed only with their initials.
2. For a breakdown of the 1939 Register by surname see Analysis of censuses for England and Wales. See also Yoe in the 1939 Register.
3. Entries for people who are or might still be alive are obscured.