UK census records & electoral rolls

These electoral records reveal the people who could vote in North Nottinghamshire in 1885. This date is important because anyone who wasn’t a property owner or who lived in a rural area had only just been given the right to vote – so plenty of ‘new’ names appear here.

The records could help you confirm Notts names, dates and places. You can then go on and discover more in the 1881 and 1891 censuses.

We’ve made two major improvements to our 1911 Census, making it even more essential in the search for your family’s past.

First of all we’ve released brand new record images, which include the ‘Infirmity’ column that was previously hidden. You can now see if any of your relatives were deaf or blind, or coped with a mental illness.

Plus, we’ve linked the records to our UK Maps, 1896-1904, supplied by Cassini Historical Maps. Once you’ve found your family in the Census, you can then see a map revealing the area they lived in.

Our London Overseer Returns, 1863-1894, are essentially Victorian electoral records. They can tell you where your ancestors were living at a particular time, and help you track their movements through the years.

Each area appointed an overseer, who had to collect the names of all the people who were allowed to vote. These returns are the alphabetical lists each overseer made – which became the basis for the official electoral registers.

Track the changes in your family through the Victorian era, all the way back to the first useful census in 1841. These are the most important records on our site, whether you’re just getting started or filling in gaps in your tree.

We have complete national censuses of England and Wales, 1841-1911, revealing occupations, birth details, other family members and much more. We also have searchable indexes of Scottish census records up to 1901.

These two collections provide a rare glimpse into early Irish censuses. 1841/1851 Census Abstracts (Northern Ireland) includes around 23,000 names that appeared in the 1841 and 1851 records. 1841/1851 Census Abstracts (Republic of Ireland) is a smaller collection for the South.

Most Irish census records were destroyed in a fire in 1922. These abstracts were created by combining remaining fragments with other documents of the time, such as pension records.

One of the great things about democracy is the number of records it creates. Our electoral registers take you back through both World Wars and the suffragette movement, to a time when only wealthy men could vote.

These records reveal over 150 million names and addresses all over the old counties of London and Middlesex. Because they were taken every 12 months, they let you pinpoint your ancestors’ movements in-between the census years, and well into the 20th century.