I've got back in the mood for family tree research lately, and splashed out on a cheap temporary access to the 1939 Register. So to follow up on my posts about the 1911 census and the 1921 census, let's have another look through the register of 29 September 1939 for that wonderful Pridmore family - since I wrote about it a few years ago, some of those 'officially closed' records (people born less than a hundred years ago who haven't been marked off as deceased) have been opened, and there are many interesting things to be seen!
My great-grandparents William and Sarah Pridmore had died in 1932 and 1920 respectively, and most of their thirteen children had predeceased them, in infancy, in the war, and of pneumonia shortly afterwards. There are three particularly significant houses in Sheffield on the 1939 register, starting with the family home.
34 Hunt Street had been the Pridmore family residence since around 1909. Bachelor son Oswald had never moved out of his parents' house, and was now the head of the family, joined by his widowed sister Lilian (her husband John May had died in 1927), her two daughters Flo and Mary Ann, and James Palmer, the son of the other Pridmore sister Florence (who had died in 1920).
Five singles living together in the house. Oswald married in 1944; I haven't found any record of the younger three ever getting hitched. Lilian didn't remarry, but she did relocate to Droylsden before she died. Pridmores didn't tend to move away from Sheffield, except when the army sent them.
10 Brough Street had been the home of the sisters Lilian and Florence, and at least briefly brother Wilfred, since 1918. As I mentioned last week, five of the residents died in the space of just over two years in 1920-22, but it was still occupied by the family in 1939. The house seems to have been officially divided into two homes - there were two separate census forms in 1921 (one for the Palmers and one for the Mays), and two separate entries on the 1939 register. But now one half of the house is inhabited by Florence's widower John Palmer and his second wife Fanny, and the other by John and Florence's daughter Jennie and her husband Alfred Dalziel, plus their blacked-out baby daughter Patricia).
Mr Palmer is calling himself John again, after being James on and off over the years. And it's hard to read the name at the bottom there, but it really doesn't look like "Jennie", does it? The date of birth and the husband match, so it's clearly her...
And the other significant Pridmore home was 72 Robey Street, where youngest son Sydney and his wife Catherine had been living since at least 1926. In 1939 they're there with their eight children (and a ninth on the way) - Mick and Bernie are still blacked out. It's not a big house, and I always wonder how they managed to fit so many kids in there.
Uncle Ted (Arthur E, line 4) was known to quip that most people married and moved out because they'd got a girl pregnant - he married and moved out in 1946 because his mother was pregnant yet again!
The other survivor of the thirteen Pridmores was eldest brother Ernest. His wife Elizabeth had died in 1928, and by 1939 he'd moved into 164 Southey Green Road to live with his oldest daughter Nellie, her husband Joseph Pearson and their children Desmond and Maureen. The 1939 Register kept being updated over the years when people changed their surnames, and Nellie seems to have remarried twice over in the years to come.
Ernest's other four daughters were also married and starting their families at this point:
98 Boynton Road gives us Lilian Littlewood, her husband Raymond and sons Raymond (junior) and Keith. Someone felt the need in later years to clarify which Raymond was the senior and which the junior, though you'd think it was obvious.
At 85 Adkins Road are Elizabeth Stacey, her husband John and the blacked-out lines will be their sons John and Roy. Roy, sadly no longer with us, gave me that wonderful comment on the 1911 census post, reconnecting my youngest branch of the family tree with his the oldest.
86 Dykes Hall Road is home to Hilda Parkinson, her husband John and their daughter Renee.
Albert Pridmore died in 1917, leaving a wife and four children. His wife Margaret died in 1931, and their children all have something unusual about their 1939 register forms. George here at 33 Havelock Street had only married Ellen in August of this year, 1939, so it's strange that they have at least one, probably two, children with them and using the name Pridmore. Were they Ellen's, from her previous marriage, and renamed after their new stepfather? Or was it something like Albert and Margaret, who for some reason lived together for thirteen years before they officially got married? It's a thing for future research.
Albert's next son Ernest has defied family tradition and moved down south. We find him here at 21 Sheila Close, Romford, Essex, with his wife Charlotte and behind the black bar will be their first son John. They'd go on to have daughters Pat and Barbara, who also got in touch after that 1911 census blog!
And Albert's other two children are living together at 8 Boundary Road, back in Sheffield. Strangely, youngest daughter Mary is top of the list as if she's head of the household, while her older brother Harold, his wife and two children, are below her.
I can't find 'honorary Pridmore' John William, Margaret's illegitimate son born in 1919, on the register. Possibly he was in the military already, or just transcribed wrongly. I'm fairly sure he was still around.
John Thomas Pridmore died in 1914. His widow Harriet had remarried, been widowed again, and now lived alone at 10 Kyle Close, where she remained for the rest of her life. Their three children all survived childhood, and had places of their own by 1939.
John's oldest son Ernest William (Bill) was at 14 Lamb Road with his wife Lilian, and officially-closed daughter Jean. Jean would go on to give birth to Mick, who wrote the invaluable family history book "Infantrymen" - check it out, if you haven't already!
Daughter Gladys Nicholson has moved to York, living at15 Kitchener Street with her husband Norman, and children Norman, Alan, Mavis and Sheila.
And other son Frederick is at 39 Dryden Road with his two children Maureen and Kenneth, but his wife Doris isn't with them.
She's in the City General Hospital at the time the register was taken. Her daughter Sylvia was born in early 1940, so whatever put her in the hospital can't have been too serious.
Some other branches of the Pridmore family had died out by the time of the register. Arthur Edward Pridmore died in 1914, and his wife Annie in 1934. Wilfred Pridmore died in 1921 and his wife Chloris in 1933. Neither couple had children.
George Harry Pridmore, who died in 1918, also didn't have children, but his wife May went on to have a big family. She had an illegitimate daughter, Barbara, in 1922 and then a son, Ronald, in 1926 - he was blacked out the last time I looked into the register. May might actually have been in a long-term relationship and not able to remarry without losing her war widow's pension (George was an officer, so it was a good bit of money), but she did eventually marry Leonard Elliott and in 1939 is living at 555 Herries Road with him, her two children and her brother Harry Foster.
Now, if only the 1931 census hadn't been destroyed in a fire during the war, we could be looking forward to seeing that released in a few years' time and maybe filling in a few gaps in the family history. But maybe I'll find some more records to dig into, some day...