Archive
Guides
There are several places that English researchers
should know well—the Public Record Office, the Family History Library, and the
various County Record Offices head the list. After the PRO, the main repository
for genealogical records is the main record office for each county in England.
This office is generally called the County Record Office or CRO, even though
the actual name may be something else (e.g., Kent Archive Office, Lincolnshire
Archives).
Many of these archives have published guides to using
their records. Prior to the 1990’s, such guides would be published in printed
books. Knowing the great value of these
guides, the Family History Library unquestioningly purchased every CRO guide
published. They are listed in the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC), under
the subject heading Archives and Libraries, although it may have –
Inventories, Registers, and Catalogs after Archives and Libraries.
The guides appear in FHLC by locality. While this
usually is the county from which the CRO collects records, they are sometimes
cataloged under the name of the city where the record office is located.
Looking under England, Norfolk – Libraries and Archives didn’t locate a guide
for the Norfolk Record Office. Rather than assume their isn’t one, you should
also look under England, Norfolk, Norwich – Archives and Libraries.
Several printed lists of CROs and other record
repositories are available. Joy Moulton’s and Foster & Shepard are the most
respected, but Record Offices: Where to Find Them is accurate (as far as it
goes) and widely available. These books can tell you where the record office is
located so that you can check the FHLC.
Many CROs are part of the National Inventory of
Documentary Sources (NIDS) project, and detail of their holdings, including
some general indexes are available as part of NIDS (for more info, click on NIDS)
The major resource of the 21st century for
finding archives, however, is the Internet. The ARCHON site (see below) is the
official listing of address and other information for CROs, and it is updated
regularly. However, many CROs have published printed guides, but have never put
such detailed description of their records on the web. In these cases, it is
still necessary to use the printed guide, if any.
Click here for Archive Guide
assignment. One should also
remember PROCAT (http://catalogue.pro.gov.uk/BasicSearch.asp),
which is searchable for many record classes down to the individual name level
(WO 97, for example).
The following article was written for a general
audience (not specifically British).
Internet
for Repositories
Finding,
searching, and contacting repositories of genealogical records are three
separate functions. Yet, for any one of these three functions, the Internet is
the easiest and most cost effective method of doing it. With a few pointers,
anyone can be using the Internet as a low cost replacement for an extensive
library of reference books and costly long distance telephone calls.
Most
archives and libraries throughout the world have an Internet presence. While
some of the smaller or more remote repositories may only have an email address,
many have a web page. Web page content varies widely, but a significant number
have some form of online catalog. This includes the extremely valuable Family
History Library Catalog (see http://familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp)
Finding a
repository can be accomplished several ways (if one doesn't work, try another):
1.
Just
type the name of the repository into your web browser's address (location) bar.
Your web browser will see that it isn't a valid Internet address and will
attempt to find the repository for you. This often works.
2.
Go to
one of the major web finding tools and search the appropriate place or topic
(if you are trying to find a Methodist archive, you may not know where it is,
but you could search by topic). The major category finding web sites are:
1. Use a locality-based service and look in the country, state, province, and/or county. The basic locality-based services are http://www.worldgenweb.org and http://www.usgenweb.org. However, some countries have such a service that is not part of those two organizations, notably http://www.genuki.org.uk.
2. Find a research guide for the subject or locality of interest and look for a name or address of that repository. You may need to repeat one or more of the above steps if what you originally searched for was the wrong name or place. Research guides are available in many locations, including Research Guidance (http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/rg/frameset_rhelps.asp), Genealogy University (http://www.genealogy.com/backissu.html), and major national or regional archives, such as http://www.nara.gov/genealogy
Searching a
repository means searching the holdings and/or catalog of a repository. An
increasing number of archives and libraries have some or all of their catalogs
available on the Internet. Once you have found a repository using one of the methods
above, check out their web site. Look carefully. Catalogs are sometimes obscure
links on the site's home page.
Once
you've found a repository's catalog, look carefully for search tips,
instructions, or help. These are often necessary to conduct a meaningful
search. The requirements and strategies for finding something in a catalog of
records are almost unique to each library or archive. You need to read the
instructions to succeed in your searches. Even if you can find something
without reading search tips, you can't be sure that you didn't miss an
additional source that would have been important to your research.
Contacting a repository can be done much more efficiently using email. If you have
received a message from someone or read something somewhere that told you that
the repository had something, copy the text of the message or cite the article
to explain what you have been led to expect. Ask your question succinctly, but
give enough information to allow the reference staff to respond correctly. Do
not send extensive stories and lists of everything you've tried. The reference
staff at most repositories do not undertake research anyway, and a long missive
just insures that they won't pay much attention to you.
If
you have a question about a specific record, such as an illegible or
unintelligible place name, scan the record in question and attach it to your
email. The reference staff can then intelligently and quickly answer your
question.
An
oddity of email communication is that you usually get better reference service
than you would if you had visited the repository in person. Why? First, the
reference person can take the time to ponder your query and answer it as
convenient. Second, your question will probably be referred to the staff member
who best knows the subject you inquired about. In person, you get the person on
the desk, who may not know the particular record type as well as someone who is
off duty.
Finally,
ask the repository if they have a search service. An increasing number of archives
have a service to do X minutes of research into a patron's question for Y
dollars (or pounds or ruples or francs...). For example, the Lincolnshire
Archives charges 8£ (about $13) to spend up to 45 minutes searching their
records. If they do offer a search service, you will need to provide some
details, but don't do that until they tell you they have a search service.
Typically, you would specify what records you want them to search for whom. For
example, you might say I want to find all the children of Joseph and Maria
Allbright who were christened in the Market Rasen area between 1840 and 1875.
If you have time left, I would also be interested in locating their marriage.
The only child I know about was Robert, who was age 4 in the 1851 census.
Meta-searching repositories
There
are several services that attempt to catalog, list, or index the contents of
many repositories. The general idea is that you can search for a family name,
company, subject, title, word, or phrase and get results from the catalogs of
many different libraries or archives. They are often a project working to
combine catalogs.
Metasearch
projects include the
FamilySearch Internet
FamilySearch
Internet browse web pages function at http://familysearch.org/Eng/Search/WebSites/frameset_websites.asp?PAGE=browselibrary.asp allows users to look at the list of
web pages for libraries and archives for any state or country in the world. Go to
this site and select a place, and you will see a list of library & archive
web pages for that place. When I select California, for example, I get a list
of over a hundred repository-related web pages just for California. I can also
a word or phrase and have FamilySearch Internet search it's list of web pages
for that word or phrase. An advantage over other search tools is that
FamilySearch Internet searches every word on the page, not just the
description. NOTE: If there are more than one hundred sites in a category, only
a hundred will be displayed. You should use the search web pages function
rather than browse to avoid missing something.
FamilySearch
Internet search web pages is at http://familysearch.org/Eng/Search/WebSites/frameset_websites.asp?PAGE=search_websites_advanced_ws.asp. Here, you can search all of the
web pages that FamilySearch Internet has listed. You have the ability to choose
a surname (not recommended when looking for repositories), place, category
(Archives and Libraries), language, and one or more features from a predefined
list. One of the features is "includes online catalog." This is a
great way to find additional repositories for the place of interest.
Other Sites You Should Know
NARA
Archival Information Locator - http://www.nara.gov/nara/nail.html
Library of Congress Online Catalog - http://lcweb.loc.gov/catalog/
ARCHON
(Archives Online) - http://www.hmc.gov.uk/archon/archon.htm
Note
that Hytelnet and LibWeb sites are readily found using Cyndi's List or other
similar comprehensive site lists.