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Are you looking for information about doing free searches in the UK electoral roll?

We put up the news article about the release of the 2007 electoral roll (scrolll down to view) and we get a lot of enquiries about this from people wanting to search for names during their genealogy research. 

The fact is that it is impossible to do free searching on the electoral roll on the internet. There is no such thing as a free electoral roll search or a free voters roll search. The following sites, which are nothing to do with Family Tree Folk, and which we neither recommend nor endorse, are the result of my own investigation and do offer electoral roll searches, for different fees.

Remember that in 2007, 30% of people in the UK objected to being put on the commercially available electoral register, so the information is incomplete.

1 Websites offering electoral roll and other people searches

Tracemart

Tracemart offers a free search but the results produce names and no information. The information- address, other people at the address, etc, is only available if you subscribe. Cost is £14.95 per month

1st locate

1st locate offers:

• One month subscription is £9.95
• People search costs £7.50 per week
• People search costs £100 for a one year subscription
• Tracing services are available at £19.99  or £35 and Electoral roll searches cost £100 per year.

ukroll.com

ukroll.com appears to be a mirror site to 1stlocate.co.uk as it has the same registered address in Leeds. Fees are different though. One month subscription is £9.95 but a year's subscription is £50 - half the price of the other site.

192.com

The biggest electoral roll provider, also has the 1861 census and the UK Birth, marriage and death indexes (like Findmypast, where you have to pay a 5p per view fee and free but only partly indexed at FreeBMD.com).

192.com has a credit system - you can do free searches but get little information without buying credits. One look at a name in the electoral roll is one credit, but you need to buy a minimum of 100 credits, which costs £34.95.

2  Electoral roll on CD

http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/test/uk.htm 

This online shop sells the latest version of the UK people finder info-disk. It is aimed at the business market really, for companies wanting to do direct mail. 

It costs £159.99 but if you are intending to do a lot of searching, it could work out maybe cheaper than a time limited subscription. The disc,  of course, will go out of date...

You might also find it useful to buy this book written by the people who started Friends Reunited: 

The People Finder: Reuniting Relatives, Finding Friends - a Practical Guide to Finding People You've Lost Touch with

Where can I search the UK electoral roll?

Enter your search term or surname in the search box on the right and choose one of the top three electoral roll sites for a direct search.

Scroll down to read on for more details about electoral roll searches, and just how much they cost.

3  If you are lucky, electoral roll on ebay cheap (ish)

People are selling the disc on ebay, but it is still at a price. There are a couple available at the moment for around the £140 mark. It may be worth looking often to see if anyone is selling their old one. I picked up a 2002 version in 2003, for about £5 but I suspect those days are long gone.

Also, if you get a disc that is a few years out of date, a word of caution. It is more possible as time goes on that someone on the disc that you want to contact may have died since the information was published. Sensitivity in enquiries is advisable.

4 March 2007

The 2007 Electoral Roll adds 29 million new names and addresses to 192.com (http://www.192.com/ ), bringing the total number of current and historical records available to over 200 million. The new records enable people looking for lost friends and family to quickly and easily find their current address. In addition, this annual update also gives businesses access to an important official record used for confirming an individual's identity when transacting online.

In 2002, when the Government first allowed people to opt out of appearing on the commercial version of the Electoral Roll, the number of records available initially declined sharply to 34 million. However, the figures for the last three years confirm that the trend for 'opting out' has reached a plateau. Keith Marsden, managing director at 192.com, commented: "This is a welcome development. People need to realise that the commercial version of the Electoral Roll is used as a key source of data to help identify individuals as they shop online - an important part of the fight against online fraud. If individuals can't be found on databases such as the Electoral Roll they are likely to have their order declined."

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Looking for old public records? 

Find old immigration records and other public information available online. 

Be it an ancestor, an old girlfriend or criminal records of a potential employee, you can find it with People Search online.