Ancestry seems to have added more Australian electoral rolls onto ancestry.com.au without any great fanfare. At least, if there was one I missed it, and I didn’t get an update about it. They now cover the period from 1903 to 1954, although the coverage isn’t complete, nor is it the same for each state.

Here is the list, blatantly cut-and-pasted from their website.

State and Years Presently Included:

This database currently includes electoral rolls for the following states and years. Those marked by asterisk have been indexed. Others are image-only.

• Australian Capital Territory: 1928*, 1929-31, 1935*, 1937*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*
• New South Wales: 1930*, 1931-32, 1933*, 1934-35, 1936-37*, 1943*, 1949*, 1953-54*
• Northern Territory: 1922*, 1928, 1929*, 1930-31, 1934*, 1937*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*
• Queensland: 1903*, 1905*, 1906, 1908-10, 1912, 1913*, 1914-17, 1919*, 1921*, 1922, 1925*, 1926, 1928-29, 1930*, 1931-32, 1934, 1936-37*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*
• Tasmania: 1914*, 1915-17, 1919*, 1921, 1922*, 1925, 1928*, 1929-31, 1934, 1936-37*, 1943-44*, 1949*, 1954*
• Victoria: 1856*, 1903*, 1905-06, 1908, 1909*, 1910, 1912-13, 1914*, 1915-18, 1919*, 1920-22, 1924*, 1925-28, 1931*, 1932-35, 1936-37*, 1942-43*, 1949*, 1954*
• Western Australia: 1901*, 1905, 1906*, 1909, 1910-11*, 1912-15, 1916*, 1917-22, 1925*, 1926, 1928-30, 1931*, 1934, 1936-37*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*

Take note of the years that are indexed and those that are not.

Full details here.

I did a test drive of a roll without going through the index. My Eason family was in Blayney until the mid-1950s, so I went searching for them in the 1954 roll. I know from searching previously for an earlier period that they were likely to be in the Commonwealth Division of Macquarie, State Division of Bathurst, Blayney Subdivision, so I went searching there first. I know that boundaries change over the years but you have to start somewhere and I started there.

I selected New South Wales, then 1954, then MacQuarie (as spelled by Ancestry). I then selected Bathurst, and E for the initial of my ancestor.

The page that came up was for the Subdivision of Bathurst, which I didn’t notice, so I then went back and searched for other divisions and subdivisions. Eventually I noticed that there were a number of pages for each selection, so I went back to Bathurst and there were 4 pages, of which I was on the first one. I moved on to page 2, which was still Bathurst, but page 3 was Blayney. There they were!

1954 Electoral Roll Macquarie Division Blayney Subdivision

You can see it’s not a brilliant image. I’ve also cropped the black border around the image. The surnames don’t quite disappear into the binding on the right hand page, although on other pages they do. Still, it’s available on your subscription at home, if you have one, or at your library, if you don’t, without looking at microfiche, which aren’t indexed either.

World Vital Records is one of the more recent entrants to the online genealogy records market, and has access to a lot of material from Archive CD Books and the Queensland Family History Society.

Their World Collection, which includes Australia, New Zealand and the UK, is normally double this price, and so this is great value. If you are already a subscriber the year will be added on the end. I am now a subscriber until March 2011!

This is a real bargain. It cost me $72.77 in Australian dollars this morning.

I’m typing this on my laptop as I’m watching the election coverage on the ABC.

I must admit that when I saw in Ancestry that they had released some Australian electoral rolls it never occurred to me that perhaps they timed the release to coincide with our federal elections! I guess I don’t associate Americans with knowledge about Australia – after all, the site talks about counties rather than states and electorates.

This is not to take anything away from their achievement. I am really looking forward to other rolls becoming available in the next few weeks (as I hope they will be!).

What is interesting me in watching the coverage is the names of the electorates and their continuity from the last century and the one before. Instead of just watching my own electorate, which has already been called, my ears prick up when I see the electorates my ancestors lived in as well.

Are the seats Liberal or Nationals or Labor or still undecided?

How close is the vote?

What were they when my ancestor was alive?

How close was the vote in my ancestors’ time?

How much has changed since then?

What were the parties’ names then?

What did my ancestor vote? Were they swinging voters?

How excited were my female ancestors when they got the vote?

How were campaigns conducted in those days?

What was the radio coverage like?

Were there the multitude of fringe parties in the Senate that there are now?

All interesting questions.

I’m sure there are many others. Some of them I can almost answer myself. I remember when the Senate voting form was much smaller than the tablecloth it is now. No TV, and certainly no graphics with almost vote-by-vote counts. More restrained newspapers without lots of photographs. No cartoons in the newspapers either! And they didn’t talk about “aspirational”seats and “battler” seats.

Ancestry has just released what I assume will be the first of many electoral rolls for New South Wales and other states. So far only 1930 and 1936 have been released for NSW, with more years available for other States between 1901 and 1936. Indexes allow searching for a name – surname with or without first name – within country, state, district or subdistrict. Once you have a list of possible suspects the image of the electoral roll page can be viewed, showing other people with the same surname in the same subdistrict.

Electoral rolls are enormously useful in showing the residences and occupations of our ancestors. In the absence of censuses this information is invaluable, helping us track movements (or not) over time. Electoral rolls for NSW go back to the 1860s, and for some divisions to the 1840s, but in those days not everyone had the right to vote – only men, and only those with property.

Ancestry is slowly increasing the number of Australian databases it holds, currently including convicts, early censuses and directories, and is well worth checking out. Subscriptions are for unlimited searches for a specific period. It is worth enquiring whether your local library or family history society has a subscription.