Thursday 22 February 2018

Liverpool & Edinburgh electoral registers join Ancestry

Ancestry has added two collections of historical electoral registers for Liverpool and Edinburgh dating from 1832.

Liverpool Electoral Registers, 1832-1970
With more than 8million names from the city of Liverpool from 1832 to 1970, this collection is full of Irish names, especially from the late 19th-century when voting eligibility criteria was relaxed somewhat.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Electoral Registers, 1832-1966
This collection holds nearly 5million names from the annual poll books listing names and residences of people in Edinburgh who were eligible to vote in elections.

For both collections, it is worth viewing Ancestry's 'about' details (use the links above for the landing pages) as there is a guide to the codes used in the registers and details of how each collection has been added to the database. Indexes were created for every fifth year, while a browse facility allows researchers to narrow down occupancy in the in-between years. No registers were produced during the war years 1916, 1917 and 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944.