If you want to know more about your past then now’s your chance.

For Huddersfield & District Family History Society is holding its annual fair at Cathedral House on St Thomas’ Road, Huddersfield on Saturday, November 14, between 10am and 4pm. This follows the great success of last year’s event when well over 300 people attended.

The fair will feature 26 different societies, local history groups and commercial organisations as well as the society’s own volunteers and researchers will be there to advise whether it is to kick start family history research or helping people if they get stuck in their quest.

The fair is open to anyone and it costs £2.50 to go in. There will be the opportunity to attend talks which include Lindsay Ince from Heritage Quay who will speak on ‘University Challenge – Uncovering Family History in the Huddersfield University Collection; Vivien Teasdale, a prominent local author whose talk has the intriguing title ‘Murder and Mayhem’. David Griffiths will also be present from the Local History Society who will talk about his new book ‘Huddersfield’s Best Address – Four Centuries of Life at Greenhead Hall.

World War Two - Second World War - Nine ounces of bread was to be the new post war daily ration allowance after the 21st July, 1946.

Susan Hutson, secretary of Huddersfield & District Family History Society, said: “Anyone who has researched their family history will know there is a wealth of information in census records and these are available online for the censuses taken every 10 years between 1841 and 1911. There is usually a 100 year rule on the release of census information although information was made available in 2009 from that taken in 1911 and the information had been awaited eagerly by family historians.

“It seems a long time to wait until 2021 for the information from the 1921 census but there has been an exciting development where information has just been released from the 1939 National Identity Card Register. The Society has asked Myko Clelland from FindmyPast to speak about what information will be available for family historians from this set of data and how searches can be made.”

The National Registration Act 1939 established a National Register of everyone in the country at the start of World War Two. During the war all adults and children had to carry a national identity card and ahead of the registration date of September 29, 1939, householders were required to record details on registration forms in order to enable the identity card system. In a similar way to the census, which still takes place every 10 years, enumerators visited each household collecting the information. Older Examiner readers may remember their families providing these records and they may still have their identity card from WW2.

National registration Identity Card, issued by the British government following the The National Registration Act of 1939, introduced to Parliament as an emergency measure at the start of World War Two. Royal assent was given on 5 September 1939. Every man, woman and child had to carry an identity (ID) card at all times and the cards would include the following information: Name, Sex, Age, Occupation, profession, trade or employment, Address; Marital status, Membership of Naval, Military or Air Force Reserves or Auxiliary Forces or of Civil Defence Services or Reserves.

Susan added: “It was important that the government had a full record of the population because of the need for rationing and because of the major dislocation of the population caused by mobilisation and mass evacuation.

“The last census had been undertaken in 1931, a set of records which has since been destroyed, but which was considered too out of date in 1939 to be useful for government planning. A census did not take place in 1941 and so these are extremely valuable records to family historians as they are the only set of records of the population of the UK still available from the years between 1921 and 1951.”

The information collected included name, sex, age, occupation, trade or employment, address, marital status and membership of any of the armed forces. The data went on to form the basis of National Health Service records.

Once the digitisation is complete it is estimated that the collection will comprise almost 1.2 million individual records.

The Huddersfield & District Family History Society fair has free parking and for more information go to website: http://www.hdfhs.org.uk/the-family-history-fair/