The National Archives
Contents
Finding your way around the website of The National Archives
The website of the National Archives can be very confusing at first sight. It is easy to search in a random fashion but it is also very easy to lose yourself and then not appear to be able to reproduce your search for another time. Because of this, many people don’t bother with it …
The intention of this set of pages is to help you find your way round the website.
The main thing to remember is that the National Archives is not set up exclusively for Family Historians and even though it has enormous holdings of over 10 million documents, the information that you are looking for may not be there.
The resources which can be found listed on the site are catalogued in two ways:
- Documents which are held at The National Archives ~ The Catalogue
- Documents which are held in other locations ~ Access 2 Archives
Alongside the search facilities, there are many other resources available to view on the site. One of the most interesting areas is the Research, education and online exhibitions.
- [Quick Guide to the Online Exhibitions]
Getting started
On the left hand side of the Home Page you will see a menu. Each link takes you to a page where you will find an explanation of what is available to help you in your research and where you will find it – these links often take you outside the site itself.
| Family History | Military History | Learning and Research |
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| Direct links to sources and background information for Census records, Births, marriages & deaths, Wills, Adoption records and Outward passenger lists. | Direct links to sources and background information for the British Army, Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Air Force, WW1 medals, Merchant navy, WW1 soldiers’ records. | Direct links to The Catalogue and Documents Online together with very detailed (searchable) lists of what is available at The National Archives in Kew. |
| more family history... takes you to a detailed explanation about how to begin your research into your family history. | more military history.. takes you to a detailed explanation about how to research military history. |
Searching the National Archives Website
| The Catalogue | Documents Online | Access 2 Archives | |
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| The Catalogue | Documents Online | Seach the A2A | |
| This is a listing of all the records which are available in the National Archives. | This is the area where you can immediately download the document which you find. | The A2A database is a search engine which will search through the catalogues of archives held locally in England and Wales and dating from the eighth century to the present day. It is updated regularly as more records are added to these archives. | |
| Searching the Catalogue | Finding and downloading a will | ||
| Downloading a medal card |
Research Guides
Research Guides A-Z
This is a listing of very detailed explanations of the various resources available on the site.
For each topic there is a great deal of background information as well direct links to the types and references for the sources available and where they can be found.
Research Tools
This page will give you direct links to information about wills, WW1 records and other collections as well as some general information about using the site.
Any search from this page will search Documents Online
