The Registers of Electors list all those who were registered to vote in any particular year. They are arranged by Parliamentary constituency and then by polling district. Some indexes by street are available to identify constituency and polling district, but the registers are not indexed by name. The majority of the records are held at our Old Aberdeen House site.
They survive for the following years:
- Aberdeen City 1832 - 1913 (at the Town House), 1946, 1955 - 1966, 1970 - 1974
- Aberdeen County 1918 - 1939; 1945 - 1974
- Banff County 1939, 1950 - 1974
- Kincardine County 1911 - 1912, 1913 - 1914 (supplementary), 1918 – 1934, 1936 - 1939, 1945 - 1947, 1958 - 1973
- Grampian Region 1974 - to date
No registers were published in the later years of the First World War (1916-1917) and during the Second World War (1940-1944).
Voters rolls for municipal elections to the Aberdeen Burgh Council, from 1832 to 1915, are also held at the Town House.
As a consequence of new regulations, two versions of the electoral register have been produced since 2003:
- The full version of the register, containing the names of all voters and used primarily to support the electoral proces. Public access is strictly controlled and the data can only be used for research purposes.
- The open register (also known as the edited version), which is available for commercial use and direct markerting etc. This omits the names of electors who have exercised thair right to opt out to protect their privacy.
The archived registers of electors are the full version and are the property of the Grampian Valuation Joint Board, Woodhill House, Aberdeen (these are catalogued with the reference ER).
Access
A fee is charged to those using these records for commercial or business purposes.
Please note that under Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2006 (SI 834), access to registers that are less than 10 years old are restricted. Access can only be provided under supervision and any person inspecting the full register may not a) make copies of any part of it or b) record any particulars included in it otherwise than by means of hand-written notes until more than ten years have expired since that version of the register was first published.
Digital Access
All the pre-1975 parliamentary and municipal registers are now available to search and view on Ancestry (£).
Holdings elsewhere
City parliamentary rolls from 1909 are available at:
Local Studies
Aberdeen Central Library
Rosemount Viaduct
Aberdeen
AB25 1GW
Telephone: 01224 652511
Email: localstudieslibrary@aberdeencity.gov.uk
Further information
For further information about historical electoral registers, please read the British Library's Guide to Electoral Registers. While this does focus on records held by them, there is good information about how the registers are constructed, what they contain, and how they can be used.