A quick guide to using The National Archives Discovery Catalogue for a basic name search...
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| The National Archives - Discovery Catalogue - HOMEPAGE |
Searching with a name or subject or date
Type the name or subject into the search box...and you can choose to search "All collections" or "Online Collections" using the tabs above the search box. |
| The National Archives - Discovery Catalogue - Search |
TIPS: Using exclamation marks ("xxx") means that it will search for the WHOLE phrase or name together, for example, "John Davidson" as a complete phrase.
Use BOOLEAN operators (see BBC website for a short explanation or CSA for some further ideas), for example, AND means it will only search for entries which include the phrase "John Davidson" AND name Charlotte in them rather than all documents with "John Davidson" and Charlotte in them separately.
CLICK ENTER once you have typed in your search and your results will appear...
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| The National Archives - Discovery Catalogue - Search Results |
You can now REFINE your results using the tick boxes on the left of the window by SUBJECT, DATE or GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT until you find the possible documents you are looking for.
To view details about the documents listed in the search results, click on the blue title and it will open another page with details about the document and where it can be viewed.
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| The National Archives - Discovery Catalogue - Details of a document |
On this page for this particular document it tells me the records can be found at Ancestry.co.uk if you have a subscription or that they can be viewed free of charge at The National Archives in London.
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| The National Archives - Discovery Catalogue - Details of a document |
On another document it has a link to how I can order a copy of the document in question. If you click this link it takes you to another page where it asks if you would like the whole document or just a few pages copying by adding details of what you would like copying. You would need to either log in or register if you're a new user and they will send you a quote via email for the cost of copying the document. For some documents they can copy them digitally and send you the PDF file whereas for others they will send you a hard copy through the post.
You can use the exactly the same process as above for searching a particular subject such as the "Battle of Waterloo" or a name or subject and a date, for example, Ypres AND 1914.
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| The National Archives - Discovery Catalogue - Search results using a date and subject |
All documents can be tagged with a word or phrase to make them easier to find later, for example, Ypres or even World War 1 (see document below) or to help your own research with the name of the relative who you might be searching for. You must be registered and logged in to tag a document. You will find the green box to tag the documents at the bottom of the page with the details of the document on it.
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| The National Archives - Discovery Catalogue - Tagging a document |
Happy searching...!!! Hope that you manage to find something really useful.
If you have any questions, or would like to add any comments about anything I have missed please feel free and I will try and respond as quickly as possible.
Copyright © 2013 Ruth Hogan
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