Location of Electoral Rolls in Devon

[crispih]

Hi, this is new to me -where can i go and look at electrol rolls please. Iam interested in Devon (Honiton area) in the 1930s/40s. I want to find my Grandfather - last heard of around 1933ish

Manythanks.

[Junekw]

Hi crispih,

Sites like 192.com have electoral rolls, just google electoral rolls and all the relevant sites will come up but you have to pay to see them and in my case the info they say they have could be wrong.
Your best bet is to go to the library of the town in which your Grandfather lived. I got lots of information on my partners grandfather by doing that. I just booked a couple of hours to search through microfiche and paper records in the main library and had a very productive day.
You should be able to find out online what records the library holds, you'll definitely get a phone number online.
If you're too far away ask them to do a search for you, I think that's better than paying online sites just in the hope you may get some info.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

June

[ChristineR]

and in my case the info they say they have could be wrong.

I have been looking at electoral rolls in Australia recently.

It looks like sometimes the people enroll just before an election in a new town, but (because there were no computers) they are still registered at their old address for that year. Sometimes people have died, and it is not until election time that the family think to take them off the roll. I have had girls marry and register with their new name, but hubby shows up still with his parents' address. I suppose they could also change occupations, but that will not show up unless they go and change the details.

[Peter Goodey]

The likeliest place to find old electoral registers is the local county record office. You will not find registers of that vintage online.

https://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonCRO/index.html


I take it that you know that there were no registers produced from 1940 to 1944.

[Geoffers]

Hi, this is new to me -where can i go and look at electrol rolls please. Iam interested in Devon (Honiton area) in the 1930s/40s. I want to find my Grandfather - last heard of around 1933ish.

On top of advice given, bear in mind that electoral registers are recorded by address, no index. If you don't know where someone lived you are going to have an enormous search.

A few alternative ideas.............

Have you tried searching:

1. The CWGC in case he died in WW2

2. GRO death index

3. The Calendar of Probate records in case he left a will or admon was granted - or did his dad die after 1933 and leave a will in which he mentions his son.

4. Passenger lists (available on 'findmypast' - pay-per-view) in case he emigrated.

5. TNA's catalogue in case he was convicted of a crime which is indexed on their site.

[crispih]

I have just rung my local office and they were really helpful

[SeaCopRimmer]

Here, in Southport, our local Library has Street Directories (going back to late 1800's) which give an address and sometimes an occupation of the head of the household so you can then go to the Electoral Register for other 'adults' in the house.