Those of you who have Scottish ancestry may be interested to know that two more Scottish related databases have been added to the Ancestry.com collection.

These are – Scotland, National Probate Index (Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories) 1876-1936 and Perth and Kinross, Scotland, Electoral Registers
1832-1961.  This is the first time that the confirmations and inventories have been made available other than on the Scotlands People website; however, you will need to visit Scotlands People site for wills prior to 1876.

So, what can you expect to find on these databases?

Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories – this can be browsed by year but if looking for a particular person/family use the search box.  As with other searches you can search using a surname only, Christian (first) name only and the wild cards are also available.  You do not need to enter a date of death, place of death etc but may do so if you want to reduce your number of “hits” (start with less detail and add to it as necessary).  The results page will give you a list of names of deceased, death date and place and confirmation date.  By clicking “View Record” you will get the place of Confirmation.  The best part is when you click on “View Images”, this gives you the following – name of deceased, occupation (mainly only men), address, date and place of death, whether testate or intestate (will or not), when and where Confirmation granted, names and addresses of executors, date of will and any codicils, date recorded in Court Books (if applicable) and lastly value of the estate.

An extract from the Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories on Ancestry

If you want a copy of the confirmation, inventory and/or will you will need to use the Scotlands People website.  You register (free) and then go to the index on their site and click on the button attached to your entry of interest.  A small fee is charged and you will receive a digitised copy of the documents.  Apart from the will, inventories can be very informative some more detailed than others but you will get some idea of household goods, bank accounts, debtors/creditors etc.  Do check these indexes for Scots dying outside of Scotland as well as if they had property in Scotland then probate would have also been granted in Scotland.

There is a guide to Scottish wills on both the Scotlands People and National Records of Scotland websites – these give detailed explanations of the process of probate.

Name:	Angus Macleod
Year:	1945
Country:	Scotland
County:	Perth and Kinross
Division or Location:	Perth Division
Place of Abode:	Ferguslca, Hay Street

An extract from the Perth and Kinross, Scotland, Electoral Registers 1832-1961 on Ancestry

Perth and Kinross, Scotland, Electoral Registers 1832-1961 – this collection can be searched by county (Kinross, Perth or Perth and Kinross).  Otherwise use the search box as described above. Electoral rolls from 1920 onwards appear to only give the name of the person, address and electoral district.  However, the earlier rolls give the following – electorate, name of voter, address, occupation, qualification to vote eg occupant of house, proprietor of house and shop etc, where property is situated.
Having these available will be a great advantage for research in Scotland especially if you are unable to visit Scotland yourself.

Marie Hickey

Electoral rolls as alternative census records.

Electoral rolls are important genealogy tools in a country like New Zealand where census records are not available. Full names, addresses and occupations are listed in the rolls and, because they are regularly published, it’s possible to track family members over time and place.

1911 election night in Cathedral Square, Christchurch. Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19111214-4-2

The Central Auckland Research Centre recently obtained a new CD-Rom from the NZ Society of Genealogists which has fully indexed five rolls marking major changes in male and female suffrage in this country.


1881 Electoral Roll

In the first national elections of 1853, only male British subjects aged 21 and over who owned property were eligible to vote.

About 100 Maori men were enrolled out of a total electorate of 5,849 because few Maori qualified under the property requirement - their lands were generally held communally (as iwi, hapu or whanau groups) rather than under individual freehold or leasehold title.

This property requirement also excluded recent arrivals, and transient workers who usually lived in boarding houses, tents or shacks. As these men did not possess property, they were not considered real settlers.

Voter turnout was low and candidates were often elected unopposed until the 1881 election when, after much debate, universal male suffrage (excluding aliens and prisoners) was introduced. Provided voters had lived in the colony for one year, and in their electorate for six months prior to the election, they were now entitled to vote.

In Christchurch’s Heathcote electorate, the Star reported “at the time of closing the poll some disturbance occurred on account of a number of electors having congregated in the lobby shortly after 5 o’clock; and when the hour of closing arrived and their votes had not been recorded, they manifested a somewhat forcible unwillingness to leave the building until the assistance of a constable was called in.”

Observer, 2 December 1911, page 6 from Papers Past

Observer, 31 October 1896, page 7  from Papers Past

1893 Electoral Roll

Despite opposition to women’s suffrage, franchise was extended to include women aged 21 and over in 1893, although women were not allowed to stand as candidates or be elected as parliamentarians until 1919.

“The Hon. Dr Grace opposed the clause to enfranchise women chiefly on the grounds that their system was too complex to stand the strain attendant upon the excitement of election. He thought too highly and tenderly of women to subject them to the excitement of politics.”    ~ Wanganui Chronicle, 25 August 1893

Leanne

NZ electoral rolls – tips and tricks!

So, why are electoral rolls such a big deal for NZ family history, anyway? The answer is that we don’t have the personal information from the NZ census of past decades such as exists for England and some other countries. So electoral rolls are one of the sources that we use as a substitute. Through them, we can find the living place and (often) occupation of ancestors who qualified to vote. However, that’s also where things get a little complicated, because the rules about who could vote have evolved over the decades since the 19th Century and the changes affect which ancestors appear on rolls and which do not.

To help with this problem, the Auckland Libraries website has a NZ Voting Rights Timeline of important dates when rule changes were made about the eligibility to vote. Some like 1879 (male franchise) and 1893 (women’s franchise) have a very big impact. Others (like changes over time about the age at which people could vote) are more subtle, but still important.

Lady voters going up to polling-booth, election day, Auckland, 1899. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A12353

The NZ Electoral Commission’s website also has a section called The History of the Vote which I recommend  to researchers wanting more historical background. It offers some interesting snippets of social history – such as an account of drunkenness and corruption in Auckland elections of the 1850s, including tampering with the electoral rolls!

NZ electoral rolls 1853 to 1981 are now digitized and available through Ancestry.com. This database may be accessed through the Auckland Libraries website on library premises for free. (It is not available through the website from home computers.)  NOTE: scroll to the bottom of the page of the NZ electoral roll database and you will find a detailed list of the election years covered. Those (few) without an asterisk beside the year are not yet searchable by voter name, but only browsable.


New Zealand Electoral Roll for Geraldine District, 1876.

For the years after 1981, come into the Auckland Research Centre on level 2 of the Auckland Libraries building in Lorne Street, in central Auckland. We hold a full set either on microfiche or hard copy that continues to the current – 2013 year.

Janelle

There are certain records such as UK census records that are frequently consulted for doing family history research. Unfortunately, no such records exist for New Zealand so we have to rely on other records to find information about households - two popular alternative sources are the Wise’s Directory and of course, the NZ Electoral Rolls.

One our customer’s who regularly searches Papers Past for historical information about Auckland
came across a news item in the 9 February 1883 edition of the New Zealand Herald reporting on a City Council meeting which offers insight as how these records were introduced into the library's collection.

Check back later this week for a new blog post from Janelle with some tips and tricks on the NZ electoral rolls.

Karen