Help searching Somerset Electoral Registers (once logged in)
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Search by Search Phrase, Electoral Period and Electoral Division.
If an Electoral Period is selected then relevant Electoral Divisions will become available to select.
i.e. If you select 1832-1868 then you can choose Somerset East or Somerset West, etc.
Digital images of the Electoral Registers have been scanned to produce a searchable text layer of each page. The accuracy of the body text (ie the names and details is very high - 99.99%).
A search will find all pages that have a match on them and return formatted lists. Once you have decided on a final page, a TIFF image of that page will be displayed. See Viewing the images.
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| Search Phrase |
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Enter one or more words to carry out a Google-like search across the page text. You can search for any text in the Register, e.g. names, addresses - multiple words are searched in any order (see examples below).
Note that NameX isn’t active on searching the Somerset Electoral Registers.
| Search Example |
Action |
| Smith |
Search for pages containing Smith. |
| Old Rock Farm |
Search for pages containing Old AND Rock AND Farm. |
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| Somerset Constituency Changes |
1832-1868
The former Somerset constituency was divided into new East Somerset and West Somerset divisions created for the 1832 general election.
1868-1885
The Second Reform Act brought about significant boundary changes, which came into effect at the 1868 general election.
The southern end of East Somerset (including Glastonbury, Radstock, Shepton Mallet, Somerton, the area round Frome and Wells) was moved into the new Mid Somerset division.
The revised East Somerset constituency was now defined as consisting of the Long Ashton, Axbridge, Keynsham, Temple Cloud and Weston Petty Sessional Divisions.
1885-1918
At the 1885 general election Somerset's divisions were reorganised into seven single-member county constituencies: East Somerset, West Somerset, North Somerset, South Somerset, Bridgwater, Frome and Wells.
The 1867-85 East Somerset constituency was divided between the new Frome, North Somerset and Wells divisions. The new East Somerset division was carved out of the previous Mid Somerset division, with Shepton Mallet, Somerton, Street and Wincanton.
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| Publication dates |
There are 3 dates associated with each Register:
- the "qualifying date", which if the date by which a voter establishes the right to vote;
- the date when a register comes into force: and
- the date when a register is replaced by a new one (normally, but not always, 12 months).
These dates can spread over 3 calendar years. The qualifying date is the one which is most useful here - at the later dates the person may have moved or died.
| From |
Qualifying date |
Date register comes into force |
| 1832 |
31 July |
1 Dec |
| 1843 |
31 July |
30 Nov |
| 1867 |
31 July |
1 Jan |
| 1878 |
15 July |
1 Jan |
| 1885 |
31 July |
1 Jan |
| 1918 |
15 Jan |
15 Apr |
For all the registers here, the effective qualifying date is the July before publication.
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| Viewing the images |
If you find that your viewer does not open the map files it may be because, unfortunately, some image viewers do not interpret TIFF images correctly (they don't expect TIFF files to contain JPEG compressed images, although this is quite normal). However, the following (free or shareware) viewers work fine:
www.alternatiff.com, www.irfanview.com
Click here for help viewing images and maps
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