Electoral Registers

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 13 Jan 2012 21:25

Nick,

You may have seen that Ancestry has recently uploaded a vast collection of the London Electoral Registers (1835-1965) which serve, in part, as a substitute for the Census, especial after 1911. Is it possible to create a template to record these valuable records using the Census section of AS or would the entry be recorded as a Census entry rather than an Electoral Register entry?

And a Wish List item, please. Would it be possible in a future edition of AS to create a generic template for adding photos and other miscellaneous media? Or perhaps this might be something for a V5 add-on?

Gerry

ID:5800

Post by **tatewise** » 13 Jan 2012 22:03

It is always worth using the Search box on the left to see if there are already threads on your topic.
The following two threads should be of interest.

(1) Electoral Register at http://www.fhug.org.uk/cgi-bin/index.cg ... y&num=5583

(2) Wish List: Image as Source at http://www.fhug.org.uk/cgi-bin/index.cg ... y&num=5764

Post by **NickWalker** » 13 Jan 2012 22:56

Hi Gerry

I'm not sure there is an Electoral Register fact - probably a residence fact would be used and there is an option that can be turned on to use that for a census entry. I've not had a look at those records on Ancestry yet. Do they contain any information other than the name and address?

I certainly think the Photo idea is quite a good one having had time to think about it since it was recently posted in the thread that Tatewise has linked to. It would need some thought - what does the source link to for example? Whole person? Name of person? Residence? Custom Fact? Perhaps a choice of any of these?

Nick

PeterR · Post by **PeterR** » 13 Jan 2012 23:20

For any photos that involve more than one relative, I link the respective faces to the Individuals. I think the advantages of that are likely to outweigh the benefits of using AS. But of course I remain a major fan of AS for the input of data from Sources.

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 14 Jan 2012 09:52

Tatewise: Thanks - at the back of my mind I seemed to recall that this had been raised before. However, as you point out, the catch is that you have to change the Source Type each time you swap between Census and Electoral Register. The other problem (I think) is that currently you would need to have a separate template for each year - which as the registers currently run annually from 1835 to 1965 is rather a lot of templates to create and manage. Ideally you would want to input the year into one of a small number of generic templates. (See below)

Nick: Yes, I think a Residence Fact would be appropriate. Most of the later Electoral Registers just have a Number, Name and Address. Earlier registers have various codes to indicate the type of qualification (e.g. Householder, Business etc). Even earlier registers may have two addresses - the qualifying property and the actual residence. There are also the war time registers showing service personnel who qualified for the vote - valuable for indicating that someone had a military career.

As for photos, I would expect to link to the name of the person. The location of the photo is often not relevant (holiday snaps, for example) just that certain people appear together and thus establish a relationship between them - as in wedding photos, for example - although the relationship is often inferred not explicit. For a group all that would be required is a list of the people in the photo and the date and location of the photo.

Gerry

Post by **NickWalker** » 14 Jan 2012 11:08

PeterR said:
For any photos that involve more than one relative, I link the respective faces to the Individuals. I think the advantages of that are likely to outweigh the benefits of using AS. But of course I remain a major fan of AS for the input of data from Sources.

Yes I envisage that for this Ancestral Sources would allow you to link the faces on the picture to the selected individuals. So it would:
Create a source
Create a citation to the source for each individual (linked to a chosen event type, custom event, 'whole person' or name.
Link the image to the source
Optionally link the faces on the image to individuals by drawing boxes around parts of the image with (optional) link notes.

Using Ancestral Sources for this would have the advantage of providing consistent name formats for the source and associated image.

Post by **NickWalker** » 14 Jan 2012 11:17

Gerry Newnham said:
Nick: Yes, I think a Residence Fact would be appropriate. Most of the later Electoral Registers just have a Number, Name and Address. Earlier registers have various codes to indicate the type of qualification (e.g. Householder, Business etc). Even earlier registers may have two addresses - the qualifying property and the actual residence. There are also the war time registers showing service personnel who qualified for the vote - valuable for indicating that someone had a military career.

The main reason that Ancestral Sources saves time over directly entering census and baptism records into Family Historian is that a single entry creates multiple events and citations. For these electoral registers it is relatively easy in FH to create a source, link an image and then create a residence fact. I agree that Ancestral Sources would still have its benefits for electoral registers but it is certainly less of a benefit than for census, baptism, marriage, birth and possibly burial.

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 14 Jan 2012 15:53

Nick Walker said:
... For these electoral registers it is relatively easy in FH to create a source, link an image and then create a residence fact. I agree that Ancestral Sources would still have its benefits for electoral registers but it is certainly less of a benefit than for census, baptism, marriage, birth and possibly burial.

It is certainly quite easy, if a little tedious, to input these as you suggest, although I didn't add 'Text from source', which is clearly where AS has the advantage.

Gerry

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