New Online Records this Week Include 53M+ England and Wales Electoral Registers
More than 53 million England and Wales electoral registers are now searchable at Findmypast. Also new or updated online: Swedish emigration registers and marriage records, Australian newspapers, Queensland seamen and New Zealand vital records.
England and Wales electoral registers
Genealogy giant Findmypast.com has published England & Wales Electoral Registers 1920-1932, a new collection with more than 53 million indexed electoral registers for England and Wales for the 1920s and early 1930s.
“Combined with the 1911 census and 1939 Register, today’s release means that Findmypast is now able to provide customers with unrivaled record coverage for early 20th century Britain, allowing them to trace their ancestors across a period of history that has traditionally been problematic for many researchers,” states a press release. (The 1921 census isn’t yet available to researchers; the 1931 census was lost in a fire and 1941 wasn’t taken because of the war.)
According to Findmypast, “Electoral registers are listings of all those registered to vote in a particular area. The lists were created annually to record the names of eligible voters and their reason for eligibility, such as their residence or ownership of a property. Registration for voters in England has been required since 1832 and registers were typically published annually, making electoral registers and excellent resource for tracking ancestors between the census years or for uncovering the history of your home or local area.”
This collection is the result of reprocessing an earlier collection to improve image quality and indexing accuracy, making the records much more searchable. As the press release explains, “For the very first time, the Registers can now be searched accurately by individual names in a similar way to other indexed collections currently available on the Findmypast. Searches will now also cover all of England and Wales and matching records from the registers will feed into hints for all customers with a Findmypast Family tree.”
The electoral register collection isn’t comprehensive for every place and year. Some registers don’t survive and others are still being imaged. According to the site, “holdings are modest to 1885, good from then until 1915 and modest again from 1918 to 1932. It should also be noted that during the First World War compilation of the registers was suspended and was then resumed in 1918.”
Here’s a related collection update: Genealogy giant and subscription site Ancestry.com has updated its database of the 1939 Register for England and Wales. This record set will likely continue to be updated over time, at both Ancestry.com and Findmypast (which first published it), as additional data is released from under privacy restrictions.
Sweden emigration and marriage records
Ancestry.com has published a new collection of Swedish Emigration Registers for 1869-1948. It contains nearly 1.5 million records kept by local police at major ports of embarkation for emigrants who left Sweden to live abroad. According to the collection description, these records “provide details of those who left, where they left from and their intended place of arrival. Many of the passengers traveled beyond the port of arrival, settling in other cities and countries so be sure to check the image for intended destinations to see where they may have eventually established a new home.”
Another Swedish collection has recently been updated at Ancestry.com, too: Sweden, Indexed Marriage Records, 1860-1947. It now contains nearly 6.7 million Swedish-language records from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sweden. Find both these collections at Ancestry.com: under Search > Catalog, enter “Sweden” as a keyword to bring up all Swedish collections. Or get a little help by clicking on the image above to read a free article on beginning Swedish genealogy research.
Ancestry.com requires a subscription for records access. To view subscription options and get signed up, click here.
Australia and New Zealand record updates
Australia newspapers. Ancestry.com has updated its collection of Australia, Newspaper Vital Notices, 1831-2001, now with more than 2.5 million records. According to the description, “this database contains birth, marriage, and death notices from three Australian Newspapers for the years 1831–2001: The Age, The Sydney Mail, and The Sydney Morning Herald.”
Queensland seamen. Look for Aussie men who went to sea in Findmypast’s collection, Queensland, Seamen 1882-1919. “From this index, you may learn the name of the ship your ancestor worked on….The 19,554 names included in this index were taken from the registers kept by the Harbours and Rivers Department….Each result includes a transcript of the original documents held by the Queensland State Archives.”
New Zealand vital records. Findmypast has added over 62,000 transcripts of baptisms, marriages & burials to its collection of New Zealand vital record indexes. “These civil registration records date back to 1848 and will provide you with all the information you need to order a copy of your ancestor’s original certificate from the NZ government website.”
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About the Author: Sunny Morton
Sunny is a Contributing Editor at Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems; her voice is often heard on the Genealogy Gems Podcast and Premium Podcasts. She’s known for her expertise on the world’s biggest family history websites (she’s the author of Genealogy Giants: Comparing the 4 Major Websites); writing personal and family histories (she also wrote Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy); and sharing her favorite reads for the Genealogy Gems Book Club.
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Here’s our weekly roundup of new genealogy records online. This week: Great Britain, Ireland, Sweden, the U.S. and Australia.
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