Wednesday 11 January 2012

Ancestry releases London electoral registers

Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) has released a major collection of electoral registers from London covering 1835-1965. Russell James from the company has blogged a description of the collection, including who had the right to vote and when, at http://blogs.ancestry.com/uk/2012/01/11/130-years-of-london-electoral-registers-released-today/. The collection contains 139 million records.

For those beyond London, the British Library's collection of electoral records from across the UK is currently being digitised by FindmyPast. The range covers approximately 100 years from 182 onwards, though not sure of the deadline for when they will be released.

UPDATE: Ancestry has also releases the Kent Tyler Index to Wills from 1460-1882 - and a list of the electoral register holdings is at http://217.154.230.218/NR/rdonlyres/37CAD668-217E-46C2-B877-DFA02B3C7D9D/0/infono21.pdf.

(With thanks to @ancestryuk on Twitter)

Chris


6 comments:

  1. Hi Chris,

    Thanks for the heads up. Would I be correct in thinking the electoral registers are still a work in progress? I can't seem to find anything prior to 1890 and much beyond the late 1930's? A useful resource all the same.

    Cheers,

    Scott

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  2. Ancestry is often irritatingly vague about what it puts online Scott, but I haven't seen anything to say this isn't the complete release. Voting qualifications did change though, so may be worth looking at Ancestry's blog piece and also the LMA PDF document I've mentioned in the update. I don't know London well enough to say what is possibly missing by way of coverage!

    Chris

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  3. Hi Chris,

    Yes, it was a general wondering. It looks as if they are still uploading as individuals that weren't there earlier are now coming up (for 1886 earliest) although the images aren't there yet. I usually do blanket searches on my surname on anything new ancestry releases (it once helped break down a very large brick wall) to see what's about. I shall have another look in a couple of days. It must be a colossal database!

    Cheers,

    Scott

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  4. I also can't find any of my London relatives later than the 1930s, so I suspect that the more recent records are incomplete.

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  5. John Reid in Canada has been doing some playing about with the records and has found gaps - see http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com/2012/01/ancestry-adds-london-england-electoral.html - of these however, there were no registers compiled 1916-17 and 1940-44 due to the two wars. The latest I have found is an entry from 1945, unfortunately my lot all scarpered from London to surrounding districts after this!

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  6. The registers cover most of the Middlesex part of modern Greater London, although there is nothing for Wembley which was joined with Willesden to form the modern borough of Brent. There are some Willesden registers, but none for Brent. There is nothing for the outer London boroughs of Waltham Forest, Havering, Redbridge or Barking and Dagenham (formerly in Essex), Bexley and Bromley (Kent) or Kingston, Merton, Mitcham or Croydon (Surrey). Most of the registers are dated between 1889 and 1939 as far as I can tell, but there are some for the earlier and later dates.

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