Genealogy Chat

I have traced a relative who has entries for most years between 1884 & his death in 1914. However, on the 1901 & 1911 census, where there are no London electoral register entries, he was actually resident in the London County Lunatic Asylum. His wife is listed as "head" on the census data. I am unclear whether the ownership of the property in which the family lived would have given him the right to be on the electoral register even if he didn't reside there - can anyone clarify? It seems rather too much of a co-incidence that the 2 years without electoral register entries are the census years. I have my suspicions that my relative was in the asylum from at least 1901 to 1914, especially as his death regn is at Uxbridge

I suppose the first question to be answered is did he actually own the property?

Today of course property ownership in its own right does not convey any voting rights, you have to be entered on the electoral register as living at an address to be allowed to vote from there.

I would imagine that being confined in a lunatic asylum at the time would probably have precluded him from having voting rights in any case much the same as occupants of HM prisons today are prohibited from voting.

As far as your last comment is concerned have you found him on the 1911 census and have you obtained a copy of his death certificate to establish the address where he died?

Thanks for the response, I have only just discovered this information so haven't gone down the certificate route yet. However, Uxbridge would be the right regn district for the London Asylum, but the wrong one for the electoral register address.

Julie, did you look at the images of the electoral roll or were you relying on the transcribed results of searching for him in 1901 $ 1911?

If you were relying on transcribed results then I would suggest looking for him on the images.

Hi, I have seen the actual images for the 1901 & 1911 census entries, granted the 1901 entry took a bit of finding as the patients at the London Asylum are identified by initials not full names, although birth places, ages & former occupations are shown. As my ancestor was not a Londoner by birth & had a uncommon occupation I am convinced I have his entry in 1901.

No Julie, it is the electoral roll images that I am referring to. I am assuming you are using Ancestry. Because they used OCR to do the transcriptions there are a lot of errors. Poor typeface and dirt marks on the original can cause many people to be missed.

If the address on the 1910 and 1912 electoral rolls was the same, then browse through the images of the 1911 electoral roll. I know there may be several hundred but usually the polling districts are the same and within a polling district the road names are in alphabetical order. So you can home in onto the required image fairly quickly.