Australian Electoral Roll Indexes, and Who Could Vote

You can do either a name search or an address search in the Australian electoral rolls collection at Findmypast.

More rolls may be added in the future, but right now (UPDATED 13 Jan 2021) Findmypast lists these as available:

• Queensland:  State electoral rolls 1860-1884 and 1895-1915, and Commonwealth electoral rolls 1903, 1906, 1913, 1922, 1934, 1941, 1949 and 1959. Only 45% have images of original rolls, but transcriptions for 1860-1884, 1903, 1913, 1922, 1934, 1949 and 1959 are very useful.


• New South Wales:  State electoral rolls 1903 and 1913, and Commonwealth electoral rolls 1935. 100% have images.


• South Australia:  Commonwealth electoral rolls 1939, 1941 and 1943. 100% have images.


• Western Australia:  Commonwealth electoral rolls 1939, 1943 and 1949. 100% have images.


• Tasmania:  Commonwealth electoral rolls 1916, 1934 and 1943. 66% have images.


• Northern Territory:  1895, 1906, 1922, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1937 and 1940. No images.


• For Victoria, first read 'Search Tips', because the records are PDFs.

Index searches are free. To see transcriptions or images of original records, I recommend either a one-month or twelve-month subscription.

* Who could vote *

Details below are derived from Electoral Pocketbook (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005).

• 1901:  State franchises applied at the first federal election (NSW, VIC, QLD, TAS men over 21 years; SA and WA men and women over 21 years). Enrolment and voting were voluntary.
• 1902:  Most men and women over 21 years were allowed to vote at federal elections. However, Aboriginal natives of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Pacific islands except New Zealand were excluded from enrolment and voting unless they already had the franchise at State level. Women over 21 years were allowed to vote in NSW elections.
• 1903:  Women over 21 years were allowed to vote in TAS elections.
• 1905:  Women over 21 years were allowed to vote in QLD elections.
• 1908:  Women over 21 years were allowed to vote in VIC elections.
• 1911:  Enrolment (but not voting) became compulsory.
• 1915:  Queensland introduced compulsory voting in State elections.
• 1920:  Nationality Act 1920 gave British subjects all political and other rights, but South Sea Islanders were still unable to vote despite being British subjects.
• 1924:  Voting at federal elections became compulsory. Enrolment had been compulsory since 1911.
• 1925:  Natives of British India living in Australia were allowed to vote.
• 1949:  Aboriginal people were given the right to vote at federal elections provided that they were entitled to enrol for State elections or had served in the Defence Forces.
• 1962:  All Aboriginal people became entitled to enrol and vote at federal elections.
• 1973:  Qualifying age for enrolment for federal elections was lowered from 21 years to 18 years.
• 1984:  Enrolment and voting for Aboriginal people became compulsory. Franchise qualification changed to Australian Citizenship (but British subjects on the roll immediately before 26 Jan 1984 retained enrolment rights).

Queensland has four separate series of electoral enrolment records. Differences and advantages are explained on Queensland Genealogy and Archives Research Tips. (In the future, this page is likely to have the latest updates and links for electoral rolls - eg, the 1969 Commonwealth electoral roll for Queensland.)

This is the address search screen at FindMyPast.

If you can't find someone in the Australian electoral rolls collection at Findmypast, check (on that page) the list of records included in the collection at that time, and (above) the legislation regarding who could enrol to vote. You should also try the electoral rolls on Ancestry.

I've seen a case where a man used his real name on State electoral rolls and a completely different name on Commonwealth rolls. I only discovered that after I saw the alias mentioned in his Supreme Court probate file.

In the future, you're likely to find more recent information about electoral rolls in Queensland Genealogy and Archives Research Tips.

(This post first appeared on http://uk-australia.blogspot.com/2017/01/australian-electoral-roll-indexes-and.html.)

Why I Use and Recommend FindMyPast

Updated 16 Sep 2019

I am a big fan of Findmypast for genealogy research. For records that are also on other sites, Findmypast's indexes and transcriptions are (in my experience) more accurate (and this is particularly obvious with British censuses). I also love the fact that Findmypast lets us sort the search results. Searches are free, so give it a try!

Findmypast includes an especially good collection of Queensland records, and I have also been using their British census records and parish registers for many years. Recently I made exciting discoveries in NSW will books 1800-1952 (which include information about many non-NSW people), passenger lists, Royal Household records, the 1939 Register, East India Company and civil service pensions, and non-conformist baptisms, marriages and burials. For example, UK outwards passenger lists showed that between one British census and the next, some of my families went to South Africa and Canada and then returned to England.

See the updated version of my article Why I Use and Recommend Findmypast, which highlights some of the most outstanding features of the site.

More NSW and South Australian records online

Image by Stuart Miles, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

These seven record sets have been added to FindMyPast's Australian and New Zealand collection:

• New South Wales, Junior and Senior public examinations 1867-1916


• British Garrison deserters in South Australia


• South Australia landowners 1835-1841


• South Australia destitute women 1855-1860


• South Australia cemetery inscriptions 1836-2005


• South Australia naturalisations 1849-1903


• South Australian ex-convicts

You will find them in the full list of Australian and New Zealand records on FindMyPast (one of my favourite sites for genealogy).

Revenue from ads goes to Kiva

Internal Migration (52 weeks of genealogical records: week 2)

Week 2 in the series '52 Weeks of Genealogical Records' is about internal migration (movement from place to place within one country). You may not realise it yet, but many of your ancestors probably did this (maybe only for a short time). In Australia it is especially important to be aware of such movement because each State and Territory has separate records for births, deaths, marriages, wills, electoral rolls etc.

Shauna Hicks recommends timelines to reveal gaps in your information, and certificates to find out about internal migration. Other sources that I use include:

• British censuses:  To quote an example from my own family tree... George WEBSTER married Sarah GIBLETT in 1829, and various sources indicated that they lived in the Greater London area until they died in 1881. I was surprised when I discovered (from census returns) that two of their eight children were born elsewhere in England (Leeds, Yorkshire, c.1833, and Manchester, Lancashire, c.1843).


• Hospital admission registers:  These are often better than death certificates; and they include biographical details for hundreds of people who went interstate (or overseas) during gold rushes and other mining booms. Many returned to their home State, and you may have no idea that they had moved temporarily. Some name indexes are online.


• Wallangarra quarantine registers:  These give details of people crossing the Queensland / NSW border during the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic. The index is online.


• Australian electoral rolls:  There are online indexes for at least two different series of 19th and 20th century rolls (and some rolls are more informative than others).


• Strays Collection Australasia:  A 'stray' is someone who married, lived or died away from his/her place of birth. This index, compiled from many different sources, has details of thousands of interstate and international strays with a connection to Australia or New Zealand.

Examples (abbreviated, without the source citations) from the Strays Index:

• ELLIOT Jeanie, widow of Max HEBDEN... late of Brisbane QLD, formerly of Rabaul PNG, Tenterfield NSW and Bangalow NSW...
• GUNN Ian Morriss, late of Clontarf QLD, formerly of Uganda and South Africa...
• JONES Gladys Ruebene (formerly HALLAM), born 1894 Texas QLD; married... Inverell NSW; died... Grafton NSW...

Tips on using the Strays Index:

1. In FindMyPast's records for Australia/NZ, narrow your search results to Category='Directories and Social History', and Record set='Strays Collection Australasia'. 
   
2. Enter a surname only; then click 'Search'.  In the results, ignore the event year/location. They have nothing to do with the person, and refer only to an index's publication date/place.
   
3. Click on the icon beside the entry to view the document (a typed page on which the surname appears, perhaps multiple times - as shown below). 
   
4. As you can see, beside the image of the page there is a section with details of the publication. Note the page number and dataset, which refer to one of several Strays Indexes published by the Queensland Family History Society. Those publications may perhaps give a better explanation of abbreviated source citations.

To find Strays Indexes for the United Kingdom (with references from census records, headstones, parish registers etc), go to GENUKI and search for the word 'strays'.

For more research tips, see my other posts in '52 Weeks of Genealogical Records':

• 10 Tips for Wills, Intestacies and Probate
• Military Medals

A full list of topics in this series is on www.shaunahicks.com.au.
~ ~ ~

Tips on Using FindMyPast for Genealogy

Yesterday, in FindMyPast or a Coffee?, I pointed out that some FindMyPast subscriptions only cost about $5 per month (not much more than a takeaway coffee).

Kylie commented, 'I got a world subscription through FindMyPast.com, the USA site, because it was cheaper at the time than the Australian and the UK sites. I don't seem to get the same search results as if I searched from their Australian site or their UK site.'

I am not an expert, and FindMyPast may change in the future, but here are my thoughts.

* Some of the United Kingdom data may not yet be fully integrated into the World Collection. In that case the UK data would be best searched through the UK site or the Aus/NZ site. Work systematically through the UK record categories rather than trying to search everything at once (a tip I learnt from Rosemary Kopittke.)

* I have sometimes found a particular entry with a search on one site (eg, Aus/NZ) but not another (eg, UK). When I noted the country, collection and record set, then went to that country's site and that record set, I always found the entry even though it didn't appear in the initial search results.

Searching UK records from FindMyPast's Australian site gives a result like this
(a Richard GIBLETT - but not this one - was my ancestor)

* On each FindMyPast site, look for links to 'search tips', 'video tutorials', 'help/advice' etc.

* Different search strategies are required with fully indexed records (where you use name fields to search) and digitised records that have been processed with Optical Character Recognition software (where the keyword field is important). This applies particularly to the Aus/NZ site. There is a good explanation in the book The New Findmypast.com.au: Gateway to the World Collection, by Rosemary Kopittke.

* Tips on how to best use FindMyPast.com.au:

Part 1 (Basic Searching)
Part 2 (Filtering)

* At Rosemary Kopittke's talks about FindMyPast (eg, at Unlock The Past events), you often get an excellent handout explaining search strategies for each site (not just the Aus/NZ one).

If you have any helpful hints about using FindMyPast, please add a comment below.

FindMyPast or a Coffee?

I recently wrote about why I like using FindMyPast. My world subscription is through their UK site, but I have also registered (free) with the Australia / NZ site because I want to receive their newsletter. (In 'My account - Personal details', tick the box beside 'Please send me an occasional newsletter'.)

The newsletter often has competitions and special offers (discounts, free pay-as-you-go credits, etc). Today's newsletter offered 20% off subscriptions if you join by 30 Nov 2013.

Depending on which subscription you choose, the cost (without discounts) ranges from about $5 to $25 per month. In other words, going without one takeaway coffee per month would save you almost enough to pay for an Australia/NZ subscription. Most people reading this blog probably have British ancestry, and for you the Britain & Australia/NZ subscription may be better value. I chose a world subscription because some branches of my family were in Ireland and Canada.

Not sure whether they have records that will be useful to you? Have a look at the full list (worldwide). More datasets are added each month. Note the inclusion of the British Newspaper Archive and various other digitised newspapers.

If you are thinking about getting a FindMyPast subscription (or if you already have one), see my tips on using FindMyPast for genealogy.

Three new indexes on FindMyPast

Biographical details of more than 16,000 people, many of them from overseas and other Australian States, are in these three series of historical records at Queensland State Archives - and the names and exact source references are now on FindMyPast.

• Applicants for the old age pension (Qld) 1908-1909
• Croydon Hospital (Qld) admission registers 1888-1925
• Brisbane Hospital (Qld) patient records for part of 1887, 1900, 1901 and 1902

The hospital records usually give details similar to those on a (very informative) Queensland death certificate, plus ship of arrival, place of residence, marital status, father's present residence, and sometimes other information that is very useful for family history. Details provided by a patient at the time of admission are usually more accurate than those on a death certificate.

During the early years of the Croydon gold rush, 70% of patients admitted to the local hospital were born in Britain or Ireland, and about 15% were born in Australia's southern states, especially the Victorian gold-fields.

The old age pension records give information about people who received the pension and also those who were rejected. These registers give the place of residence of many people who were not on electoral rolls, including some who were not British subjects, not naturalised and thus not eligible to vote.

My Web site lists (on separate pages) the names from these three indexes. You may find it more convenient to search or scroll through all 16,200 names in a combined alphabetical list.

If you use FindMyPast to get exact source references, you can personally inspect the original documents at the Archives, or order a copy.

You may be surprised at what you find in these records, which have allowed many people to make rapid progress with their family history. Even if you are not aware of a Queensland connection, I urge you to check the indexes.

Revenue from ads goes to Kiva

Update re Obituaries of Civil Engineers

After reading my question about an index to obituaries in Minutes of the Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain), Darryn emailed me with details of a Web site that I somehow missed. (Was I blind? Did I do something stupid in my Google search? All I can say is 'Oops' and 'Thank you, Darryn'.)

For some unknown reason, the Web page with the Obituaries Index says it only covers 1880-1904, but the lists of names do in fact include entries for deaths up to the 1930s.

Unfortunately the link to L-M surnames was not working when I tried it.

The Web site says that the obituaries "contain very full descriptions of the life and work of the individual, and often list names of parents, and occasionally wives and children. Although the majority of them are British born, there are those born in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India, as well as other distant places. Many of them worked and died in these countries and left family there."

Thrifty Thursday: This Week's Freebies

There are some interesting freebies and discounts available at present (and, in the future, more will be listed on a Discounts and Freebies page).

• LostCousins is totally free to 2 May 2011. This is probably the only web site that has virtually 100% accuracy in matching people who share the same ancestors. You do not waste time corresponding with people who are not related to you. To use LostCousins you need to have found relatives in one of these censuses: USA 1880 or 1940; Canada 1881; Scotland 1881; Ireland 1911; England and Wales 1841, 1881 or 1911. Be sure to enter data for brothers and sisters of your direct ancestors, as it is their descendants who are most likely to have letters or photos from your line. Start by reading the LostCousins 'How-to' page. Remember to log in periodically, go to your 'My Ancestors' page and click 'Search'.
  
  
• Free access to Gale's historical newspaper and periodical collections, including more than 10 million digitised pages, to 24 April 2011.
  
  
• In honour of ANZAC Day, free access on Ancestry during this Easter long weekend to 40 million military records for Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada and USA.
  
  
• England & Wales marriage indexes 1837-2005 on Ancestry are free to search to 30 April 2011.
  
  
• Until 5pm AEST 27 April 2011, order a New South Wales full certificate transcription for just $16.

When I hear about more offers, I will list them on the Discounts and Freebies page on my main Web site.

Patents and Trademarks (52 Weeks to Better Genealogy, no.28)

Better Genealogy Challenge no.28 was essentially 'Visit your national Patent and Trademark Office web site, and also try Google Patent Search.'

The Australian Government site https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/ lets you select whether you want to search patents or trademarks. An unusual feature is the ability (in 'Customise columns/data') to drag and drop data labels to change their order in your results. You can also add or remove a label by dragging it into or out of the list of unused labels. I recommend including the label 'Agent Name', because in my search it revealed the inventor's address.

On the IPAustralia site I searched for 'Cunnamulla' (my home town) and found that in 1981 Stuart Charles BARKLA applied for a patent for a folding stock feeder.

In the Trademarks section I searched for two surnames from my mother's family, and the counts were RIENECKER=46, STEINKE=146.

In last week's challenge - using Google Scholar - I found a United States patent issued to William Stewart BENTLEY, Mooning, Cunnamulla, Queensland, Australia, for inventing an ornamental design for a bread bun.

('52 Weeks to Better Genealogy' is a series of tasks devised by Amy Coffin.)

Reasons for admission to a Mental Asylum

In family history research, we often find that someone 'vanished'. If a death certificate cannot be found around that time, or if children were raised by someone other than a parent, it is a good idea to check mental asylum records. Reasons for admission included epilepsy, depression (especially post-natal depression), alcoholism, head injury, syphilis, and congenital defects.

For more examples, see 'Children in Mental Asylums'.

Many people spent only a short time in an asylum, and descendants may be unaware of that; so I recommend checking the indexes even if you have no reason to suspect that a person may have been in an asylum.

Names of thousands of patients in Queensland mental asylums (including many people who had previously been in asylums interstate or in the United Kingdom) are on my Web site. Most names are from insanity files or asylum case books. To order copies of those original records, follow the instructions at the bottom of each page.

UK emigrants at Croydon QLD

A study of hospital admission registers for Croydon (Queensland, Australia) in the late 1880s (during the local gold rush) showed that about two-thirds of the hospital patients were born in the UK or Ireland. Significant numbers also came from the Victorian goldfields and other mining areas. The hospital registers are very useful for family history. See the list of patients' names (about 5,000 of them).