Tracing people

Background

One use of archives is to help find out where people live today. This includes people who have lost touch with old friends, and also people tracing long lost family members. Unless you have an idea where the person might be living, it can be difficult to find them. It is sensible to start from the last place you know they were. Try to find out when they moved on (when they disappear from the records). As many of the records are not indexed by name, you may need to spend some time looking through the relevant records.
You may also want to consider:
 using Facebook and other social media
 placing an advert in a local newspaper

What records are there and what information will they contain?

Electoral registers:

• Produced every year.
• List people who are registered to vote in elections.
• Usually sorted by district, then parish and then address.
• Some earlier registers are sorted by name
• Only contain the name and address of the person who is registered to vote.
• Will not include children under the age of 18 or temporary residents
• Gloucestershire Archives does not hold the current years’ Electoral register
• For more information see Electoral Registers

Telephone books:

• Produced every year.
• Usually cover a county or part of a county.
• Usually sorted by surname.
• Give the name of the phone bill payer.
• Will not include people who have opted out as “ex-directory”
• Few are held at Gloucestershire Archives, but modern phone books can be searched online

Directories:

• List residents and tradesmen within an area.
• Similar to telephone books and may be sorted by address and surname.
• Give name and address of the head of the household, and perhaps their trade/job title
• The latest directory held at Gloucestershire Archives is for 1974.
• After this date you will need to use electoral registers or ‘phone books.

School records

• Good place to look if you are looking for a child or a person with children
• Admission registers     

     o give the name and address of the parent/guardian of the child
     o may tell you which school the child moved to, if the family moved away

• For more information see School records.

Birth, marriage and death records

• Marriage certificates are a good place to find out where someone lived. They give you:
       o their place of marriage,
      o address at the time of marriage
      o the name of their spouse.
• If the couple had any children, their birth certificates will give you the family’s address.
• A death certificate will tell you the place of death or residence at the time of death.
• You will need to purchase a certificate.
• For more information see Civil Certificates.

How to Find the Records

All these records, except birth, marriage and death certificates, can be viewed at Gloucestershire Archives. For more information please see the relevant guide or email us at archives@gloucestershire.gov.uk. Certificates for birth, marriage and death certificates which happened in Gloucestershire can be purchased from the Gloucestershire Registration Service. For more information see Civil Certificates.