Electoral Rolls provide excellent evidence that place individual (adult) family members at a known address in a specified time period. But it is important to understand how the Rolls were compiled and maintained. Until relatively recently, two separate organisations compiled Rolls for State and Commonwealth elections. Although we often focus only on election years, rolls were produced regularly and updated with Supplements between polls. Probably the only organisations within an (even approximately) complete set of Rolls are the QSA and NAA. The subscriptions sites (such as Ancestry and Find My Past) and CD producers (such as QFHS) offer different but over-lapping collections. John emphasised the importance of checking all possible sources and comparing the publication dates of all the Rolls used.
Addresses listed in the Rolls vary widely in the amount of information provided and the form in which it is presented. A husband and wife at the same address might have listed their (shared) place of living quite differently. A search for "Street" will not match "st" so it is wise to skip that level of detail in your search. Some addresses (before 1940) may include a house number but it will not necessarily match the current numbering system. Names were a more common way of identifying a particular home but spelling can vary and it may or may not be enclosed in single or double quotes (so Levenbrook, Leven-Brook, 'Leven Brook' or "LevinBrook" might all be the same place). It was not uncommon for a single man or young family "boarding" in premises owned and also occupied by others to include the landlady's name in their own address (such as Green, Frederick Martin, Smiths Stanley street Sth Bne) so beware of indexes that (incorrectly) treat that as part of the voter's name.
Post Office Directories generally listed the names of residents on each side of a particular street in order as you walked from one end to the other. So comparing an (alphabetical) list of names from the electoral roll with the PO Directory list should let you determine the location of a home with respect to both nearby streets and the neighbours (such as third house along Plymouth Street from the Raymont Road corner, before the Arkells).
Google Maps (and Street View) provide a means to look at the building currently in the geographical location of your ancestor's dwelling; but you cannot be sure from those images that the home has not been extensively modified or even demolished (and replaced) since they moved out.
Detail plans kept by the BCC Archive will (if the family lived in the City of Brisbane) allow you to look back as much as a century to view the data collected by surveyors planning for the metropolitan water supply and sewerage system. In some cases, the survey field books documents changes identified over three (or even more) surveys.
1946 aerial photography will provide visual confirmation (through features such as placement of the building on the land or roof size and shape) of the information available from the surveys. The same tools will give access to the official Real Property (RP) description of the land that can be used to access (and perhaps purchase) copies of the the title deeds to confirm that your ancestors not only lived in, but also owned the property in question.
If you wish to use JP's approach for your own problem, the relevant links are listed below. Or if you simply wish to follow along to reinforce what you have learned, you can open this selection from the images displayed during the talk.
Electoral Rolls
- Ancestry > Search > Card Catalogue
Filter by Collection: Census & Voter Lists
Filter by Location: Australia > Queensland
Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 - Find My Past > Search > All Record Sets
Filter: Australia and New Zealand
Search: Electoral
Queensland Electoral Rolls - National Archive of Australia
Series BP94/2 Commonwealth Electoral Rolls for Queensland - Queensland State Archives >ArchivesSearch > electoral roll
Limit by date:
- Moreton Bay Region Libraries
Microform (1868-1944) at Strathpine - State Library of Queensland
CD ROM QCFS 919.430025
- Location and opening hours
- Detailed Plans (online)
- Indexes (5 maps)
- Assets Search Search images > words or phrase > [plan ###]
- Detail Plan Index Registers
- Building Records