Finding People Who Were in WW1: Absent Voters Lists, Cambridgeshire

If you don't know IF somebody fought in WW1, then that's often an annoyance, but there are ways you can try to find out.  One way of finding people who were in WW1 is to look at the Absent Voters Lists, 1918-1921.

The Absent Voters Lists have over 20,000 records of people who were serving with the auxiliary forces, merchant seamen, diplomats and others working in war effort occupations.  They are lists of eligible voters who were absent from their homes.  The names of absent voters were sent to the War Office who arranged for voting cards to be sent to people serving in the UK and they sent ballot papers to those in France.

The Absent Voters Lists were completed by August 1918 and published in October 1918. This delay means that the lists might include people who were killed, missing or had been taken prisoner between the dates of compilation and publication.

These Absent Voters Lists can reveal an ancestor's name, a description of the work they were doing for the war effort - and their qualifying premises, which is their permanent home address.

Of course, a record set of 20,000 compared to the "millions who died" that we're told about, means that you might start off thinking "I'll never find him in that" - but if you don't look, you'll never know!

Using Findmypast and filtering down to the county of Cambridgeshire there are 132 images - and when I typed in the surname of my Great-grandfather, the list reduced to 61 (still too many), so then I put in his first name and it gave 0 results.  This is what I expected as I've never heard any clue that my great-grandfather did anything in the War.... he'd have been 34 when it started, which isn't too old.  So I need to find out what he DID do.  I suspect it was a protected occupation probably.  Another avenue to chase up!