Electoral Registers and Burgess Rolls

Registers of Head of Household and later all voters.
For these you need a date and an exact street address. Most electoral registers have some form of street index. Old registers are generally in local studies libraries. More modern registers are often still in the local town hall.

If your ancestors were not born in Britain or of British parentage then they did not have the right to vote, until after they had been naturalised. Bear this in mind before you start an electoral register search.

Arranged by street and then house number an electoral register will give the names of all those eligible to vote. The voting age was 21 years. Young voters (those who became eligible to vote during the year) are often noted with their birth date. This is a very nice way of getting more precise dates of birth as well as extended members of a family or finding out who else was living with your ancestors. In 1918 all men became eligible to vote and women of property over the age of 30 became eligible to vote. In 1928, the voting age for women was lowered to 21. Prior to this, voting rights were very limited. There are gaps in register years for the first and second world wars when no list of voters were taken

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