London Electoral roll????

[Sammy An]

Hi,
    Can anyone tell me how I get access to the London electoral roll for the 1950's and 60's.

Is it online?

Sammy.

[chasbaz]

What part of London?  The rolls are on a per-constituency basis.  Libraries or archives for the area should have them.

[dawnsh]

Some are online at Ancestry but the years aren't complete and due to the OCR software used some names don't turn up in the searches.

An almost full set for these years should be available at the British Library at St Pancras. You'll need to register and order them in advance of your visit as they are stored off-site.

All electoral registers not online are compiled by constituency then ward then address, they are not compiled by surname.

Dawn

[Chris Doran]

By the 50s and 60s, the ownership of telephones was increasing, so if you don't have an address, start with the 'phone books on Ancestry. Armed with that, most Local Studies Libraries/Archives will do a quick lookup for free, so try e-mailing them before tackling the British Library. Even if you do need to visit London, you'll probably find the local library less daunting than the BL, and they'll have the ERs on the shelves as well as other local records the BL won't have. But check that you're going to the right place, as local libraries are unlikely to have ERs for neighbouring boroughs.

But if you give us more detail (without giving the names of people still living) someone here may live close enough to help.