Electoral rolls are the nearest thing Australians have to census
records, and hence they are extremely important and useful for local,
family and social historians.
Printed electoral rolls were produced by Electoral Offices to assist in the
management of elections. An electoral roll is a listing of all those residents
eligible and registered to vote in a particular area.
In the nineteenth century, the management of elections, often under a
restricted franchise, was undertaken by colonial authorities. From 1901, with
Federation, the Commonwealth Government gradually undertook the management of
the rolls for both State and Federal elections except for Western Australia.
Because enrolment was compulsory for all eligible voters (with the exception
of Norfolk Island) there is a strong likelihood that a person can be located.
The information you can find the Queelsnad State 1896 Electoral Roll is:
- No.
- Christian Name and Surnam
- Qualification
- Situation of Residence or Property
- Age
- Place of Abode
- Occupation
- Particulars of Qualification
- Date when Claim Received by Electoral Registrar
- Polling District
Until the advent of widespread computers in 1985 which brought about the
publication of single lists on microfiche and hence the easy searching of
databases, researchers were somewhat restricted by the large number of name and
the arrangement of the rolls into Divisions (the Commonwealth term for an
electorate). Publishing scanned versions on searchable CDs overcomes these
significant barriers.
High quality scanned images of the whole of each volume of this year's
electoral books. This CD has
been bookmarked for easy navigation, and pages can be searched, browsed,
enlarged and printed out if required.
Click here to download a file of sample pages from this book
Right click on the link and select "save as" - to a location on your hard drive. The sampler can be opened, navigated and searched as with the full CD file/s.
Sample files usually contain the title page, contents, some introductory pages and sample pages from the body of the book. Often the complete index from the original book is included.
