HELP

• Navigating
  
• What are these records?
  
• How accurate are these records?
  
• What do the letters O, J, R, (a) and (g) beside someone's name mean?
  
• How are Irish spellings handled?
  
• What about street names?
  
• What about first names and initials?
  
• What's missing?
  

• Navigating
  • From the scanned image, use the "Return to Search" link to go back to your list of results.
  • From the scanned image, use the "<< Prev Next >> " links to view the preceding or following scanned pages.
  • In the Advanced Search, from the scanned image use the "Edit Search Parameters" link to go back and change any of the information you entered.
• What are these records?
  • These records are lists of those registered to vote in Dublin city in Dáil and local elections, for use in polling stations at election time. At the period they were produced, the voting age was 21, meaning that everyone listed is 21 or over. They are not, therefore, complete household listings. The Dublin City Library and Archive collection starts in 1937 and continues up to the present. For the moment, this online database covers the year 1939-1940 (c. 280,000 records). The Reading Room version includes the entire collection to 1964 (c. 4.1 million records). For details of gaps in the collection, see "What's missing?" below.
  • Physically, the electoral records consist of a series of booklets, each recording all registered voters in a particular polling district. The streets in the polling district are given alphabetically and the houses within each street are then listed numerically. There does not appear to be any rule governing the order in which members of a household are listed. The polling district booklets are bound into larger Registration Units, which were in turn sub-divisions of Dáil constituencies. Page numbering is for polling districts only (i.e. numbering restarts from 1 at the first page of each polling district booklet).
• How accurate are these records?
  • As with today's electoral register, a certain level of inaccuracy is inevitable:
    • The names of individuals who have died or moved away may continue to be listed;
    • Some people may not have registered to vote in the first place;
    • A certain amount of human error is inevitable in typesetting, proof-reading and indeed database transcription.
  • Without cross-checking against a census, it is not possible to say with any certainty how many omissions or mistaken inclusions there are. However, it is clear that in the earlier years, the 1930s and 1940s, universal suffrage was relatively new and the right to vote was treated with a great deal more respect than it receives today. It is therefore very likely that the level of omissions and mistaken inclusions in these years is relatively low. Perhaps for similar reasons, the accuracy of typesetting and proofreading is significantly better in the earlier years than later on. The 1960s volumes contain much higher levels of obvious mis-transcriptions.
  • The database transcript has been thoroughly checked against standard tables of surnames, first names and street names, and all unmatched records compared with the original pages. An accuracy level of more than 99% has been achieved. It should be remembered, however, that 1% of 4 million is 40,000. Where an expected entry is not returned by the database, it is always worth using the advanced search to retrieve adjoining addresses and then browsing the scans of the original pages.
• What do the letters O, J, R, (a) and (g) beside someone's name mean?
  • "(O)" means that the individual is listed because of occupation of the premises, rather than residence. This generally implies that the person paid rates for a business at this address and is therefore entitled to vote in this district in local elections, but resides elsewhere.
  • "(J)" means that the individual is qualified to serve as a juror. At this period property qualifications still restricted the right to serve on juries.
  • "(R)" means that the individual is entitled to vote in local elections in this district, because of residency, but not entitled to vote in Dáil elections.
  • "(a)" or "(g)" means that the individual is a postal voter.
• How are Irish spellings handled?
  • The spelling of Irish names by those compiling the lists, in the early years at least, was extremely inconsistent, with seimhiús and fadas sprinkled liberally throughout. Pádraig, for example, is recorded as Padráig, Pádraíg, Padhráig, etc. The spellings are recorded in the database as they occurred in the original lists, but the search covers all versions of the letter, accented and unaccented. So searching for Pádraig will also return all Padraigs, Padráigs and Pádraígs, but not Padhráigs, because of the "dh". This works for both surnames and first names.
• What about street names?
  • Street names are standardised throughout, generally in the earliest version, to simplify searches. This means that, for example, "Abbey Street, Lower" is recorded as such for all years in the database, even though in the originals (and in the scans) it may also appear as "Lower Abbey Street" or "Abbey Street (Lower)".
  • From the mid-1950s, the names of many newer suburban streets are recorded in Irish, particularly on the north side of the city, even though they are more widely known under the English versions. Unless the Irish version is the one in common use, or no English version is apparent, names have been standardised to the English version. Thus "Gairdini Phairc an Bhailtin" in the original lists appears in the database as "Villa Park Gardens".
• What about first names and initials?
  • Up to the 1960s, almost all entries supply the full first name. From 1962, only the initials of the first name(s) are given for many soldiers in the city barracks, for example "P. Murphy", where previously this would have been "Patrick Murphy". The best way to ensure you pick up the name you're seeking is to use the Advanced Search wildcard.
• What's missing?
  • 50% of 1937-1938 is missing.
  • 20% of 1940-1941 is missing.
  • 1945-46, 1947-48 and 1949-50 are missing
  • 1951-52, 1952-53 and 1953-54 are missing
  • 1957-58, 1958-59, 1959-60, 1960-61 and 1961-62 are missing