# Electoral Registers and Poll Books for Family History Source: https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/electoral-registers-family-history/ Last updated: 2026-09-29 Summary: How to use UK electoral registers and poll books for family history: who was listed from 1832, wartime gaps, where to search free and online, and tips. Publisher: The Polish Genealogist (professional Polish genealogy research, polishgenealogist.co.uk) --- Electoral registers list the people entitled to vote at a given address in a given year. They have been compiled almost every year since 1832, so for a family who stayed put they work like a yearly census: who lived in the house, when a son came of age, when a wife was first listed and when a name quietly disappeared. Before the secret ballot arrived in 1872, printed poll books go one step further and show how each man actually voted. Registers are arranged by place, not by name, and there is no single national index. The best free starting points are the name indexes on FamilySearch and the registers held by local record offices and libraries; the largest digitised runs are on Ancestry and Findmypast. The British Library keeps the national set from 1947. This guide explains who was listed and when, the wartime gaps, where the registers are and how to search them year by year. > **Has a Polish-born ancestor finally appeared on a British electoral register?** We can take the name, address and dates from the British records and follow the family back through Polish civil and parish registers. [View research packages](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/services/family-history-research/) ### What an electoral register tells you A register gives, at minimum, each voter’s surname and first forename and their place of abode. Until 1948 it also stated the qualification to vote, such as occupation of a property, residence or ownership, which tells you whether your ancestor owned, rented or lodged. From 1885 to 1915, men qualified under the lodger franchise were listed with their landlord or landlady, the weekly rent and the number of rooms they rented. From 1918, registers were also used to record absent voters, mostly servicemen, and for several years they often show the man’s service number, rank and unit next to his home address. That can connect a name to a service record in our [guide to UK military service records](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/uk-military-service-records/). The limits matter just as much. A register lists voters, not households, so children, many women before 1918 and anyone not entitled to vote are missing. The address is the property through which the person qualified to vote, which is not always their home. Ages are not given, apart from the later markers for young people coming of voting age. ### Poll books before 1872 Before the Ballot Act 1872 introduced the secret ballot, votes were cast in public. The results were often printed as poll books: lists of voters in a constituency, usually with their parish or address and the candidates they voted for. They survive in libraries and record offices rather than in one official series. Poll books help with property-owning men before civil registration and the census. After 1872 printed poll books largely stopped, because there was no longer a public record of how anyone voted. Ancestry has a collection titled UK, Poll Books and Electoral Registers, 1538-1893, and the British Library and The London Archives also hold poll books. ### Who was on the register, and when The single most common reason for not finding someone is that they were not entitled to vote at the time. The franchise widened in stages, and each stage changes who you can expect to find: A missing Victorian working-class man is normal, not a sign that he had left. Most women first appear in 1918 or later. ### The gaps: 1916-1917 and 1940-1944 Registration was suspended during both world wars. According to the British Library, there are no registers for 1916 and 1917 (1915 to 1917 in Scotland) or for 1940 to 1944 inclusive. For the Second World War years the best substitute is the 1939 Register, covered in our [guide to census records and the 1939 Register](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/uk-census-records-and-1939-register/). There were also extra registers. From 1919 to 1926 there were two a year, known as the Spring and Autumn registers, and in 1945 and 1946 there was a special register for the general election and a supplementary register of service voters. Registers are usually labelled by the year they came into force, which can be a year after the qualifying date, so read the title page before recording a date. ### Where to find electoral registers #### Free and official options - **Local record offices and local studies libraries** hold registers for their own area, often in long runs. This is usually the best place for anything before 1947. The National Library of Wales and the National Library of Scotland hold Welsh and Scottish registers. - **The British Library** holds a complete set for the whole United Kingdom from 1947, complete sets for 1937 and (except Northern Ireland) 1938, and about 20,000 earlier registers. Its holdings are modest before 1885, good from 1885 to 1915 and modest again from 1918 to 1931. - **The London Archives** (formerly London Metropolitan Archives) holds most registers for the London area. See our [guide to The London Archives](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/london-metropolitan-archives-family-history/). - **FamilySearch** has a free name index to London electoral registers for 1847 to 1913, taken from The London Archives. - **The National Archives** at Kew does not hold complete collections of registers, so it is rarely the place to start. #### Subscription websites - **Ancestry** has London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1972, from The London Archives, which offers free access to Ancestry in its search room. - **Findmypast** has England and Wales Electoral Registers 1832-1932, digitised with the British Library. Registers from 1910 to 1932 are indexed by name; many earlier volumes can only be browsed. - **192.com** and similar people-finding sites sell searches of the open register from 2002 onwards. Some public libraries give free access to Ancestry or Findmypast on their own computers, and our [guide to free genealogy websites](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/free-genealogy-websites-uk/) lists other free options. ### How to search registers year by year 1. Find a firm address first, from a census, a birth or marriage certificate, a will or a directory. Without an address, unindexed registers are close to impossible to search. 2. Work out the constituency and polling district for that address at that date. Boundaries changed in 1867, 1885, 1918, 1948 and later, so a town name alone can mislead. The census from 1861 to 1921 often names the parliamentary borough or division. 3. Try a name search on FamilySearch, Findmypast or Ancestry, then open the image. Indexes built from printed pages misread unusual surnames, so also search by street where the site allows it. 4. Once you have one entry, read the same street in every register before and after it. Note the first and last year each person appears and any change of qualification. 5. Treat changes as clues, not proof. A name that stops may mean a death, a move, a lost vote or a mistake by the clerk. Check a death index or a probate calendar for the year it disappears. An illustrative example: a man is listed at the same house every year from 1920 to 1931, with his wife from 1929. In 1932 only the wife is listed. That points to a death or departure between the two qualifying dates, and a search of the death indexes for 1931 and 1932, followed by the [probate calendar](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/probate-records-wills-england-wales/), is the next step. A new adult name at the same address may be a son reaching voting age or a lodger; a certificate from our [guide to certificates](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/birth-marriage-death-certificates-england-wales/) can settle which. ### Modern registers: the full and open versions Since 2002 there have been two versions of the register. The full register lists everyone registered, except people registered anonymously. GOV.UK states it can be used only for elections, campaigning, preventing and detecting crime, checking credit applications and summoning juries. The open register (the edited register in Northern Ireland) can be bought by anyone, and voters can opt out of it without losing their vote. For family historians this means that recent registers are restricted. At the British Library, registers from 2003 can be seen only under supervision and copied only as handwritten notes. To view the current register locally, GOV.UK advises contacting your electoral registration office; it is often available in libraries. ### Polish-born ancestors on British electoral registers For most of the registers’ history, foreign nationals, known in law as aliens, were not entitled to vote, so they were not listed; EU citizens gained local votes only in the 1990s. A Polish-born man who settled in Britain after the Second World War usually appears on the register for the first time only after he was naturalised. His first entry therefore gives an approximate date that you can then pin down in the naturalisation records described in our [guide to naturalisation records of Poles in the UK](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/polish-britain/naturalisation-records-poles-uk/). That date can matter well beyond family history. Whether a naturalisation before or after 19 January 1951 ended Polish citizenship is explained in our guide to [British naturalisation and the 1951 rule](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/citizenship/british-naturalisation-polish-citizenship-1951/). The register only suggests a year; the certificate or the London Gazette notice gives the exact day. Look closely at the British wives of Polish men too. Under nationality law between 1870 and 1948, a British woman who married a foreign national could lose British subject status; after 1933 this happened only if she acquired her husband’s nationality through the marriage. A wife who drops off the register after a wedding and returns later may be showing that change, so check it against her marriage date and any later naturalisation or registration papers. Polish names suffer in indexes. Expect Wojciechowski transcribed with letters missing, and husbands who later anglicised their names to appear under both forms in different years; see our guide to [anglicised Polish surnames](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/polish-britain/anglicised-polish-surnames/). More recent Polish arrivals appear differently. Poland joined the European Union on 1 May 2004, and from then Polish citizens living in the UK could register for local elections and, while the UK remained in the EU, for European Parliament elections. Today, under a UK agreement with Poland, GOV.UK lists Polish citizens with permission to be in the UK among those who can vote in local elections in England and Northern Ireland; Scotland and Wales have their own wider rules. Registers from this period are restricted, as explained above. Once a register gives you a settled address, the next record is usually the naturalisation file, which often names the place of birth in Poland. From there, our guide to [finding a birth entry in Poland](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/vital-records/finding-a-birth-entry-in-poland/) explains the Polish side. ### Official sources - [The National Archives: Electoral registration](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/electoral-registration/) - [The British Library](https://www.bl.uk/) - [The London Archives: Electoral registers](https://www.thelondonarchives.org/your-research/research-guides/electoral-registers) - [GOV.UK: The electoral register and the open register](https://www.gov.uk/electoral-register/opt-out-of-the-open-register) - [GOV.UK: Who can vote in local government elections](https://www.gov.uk/elections-in-the-uk/local-government) - [legislation.gov.uk: Ballot Act 1872](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/35-36/33/contents) - [GOV.UK: Historical background information on nationality](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/historical-background-information-on-nationality) ### Related guides - [Naturalisation records of Poles in the UK](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/polish-britain/naturalisation-records-poles-uk/) - [UK census records and the 1939 Register](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/uk-census-records-and-1939-register/) - [Family history at The London Archives](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/london-metropolitan-archives-family-history/) - [Free genealogy websites for UK research](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/free-genealogy-websites-uk/) > **Research service:** Traced the family back to a Polish-born ancestor? · 10, 20 or 30 hours of research for one family line · [View research packages](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/services/family-history-research/) --- Research help: The Polish Genealogist researches Polish family history, military service and citizenship evidence in Polish, British and international archives, with reports in English. Services and prices: https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/services/