The National Archives of the United Kingdom

The National Archives (acronym TNA) is the official governmental archive of the United Kingdom, containing nine hundred years of history with records ranging from parchment and paper scrolls through to digital files and archive websites.

The TNA is home to records created by the central government, metropolitan law courts and civil administrative agencies. These archived documents span every gamut of legal register from the Domesday book of 1086 to present day military rolls.

All these records can be searched through the online catalog at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. These documents can be viewed at an onsite visit or some records from popular collections can be downloaded onto your own computer. There is a slight fee per page for the downloads.

If visiting onsite or ordering by mail the postal address is:
 * The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU

When visiting, preparations should be made in advance to order the materials you wish. Up to six documents can be ordered in advance. For details please view Plan your visit to the National Archives at the above website. A Readers Ticket should also be purchased to reserve a document viewer.

It should be noted at this point that all copies of birth, adoption, marriage and death certificates after 1837 are held in the General Register Office not the TNA. They can be ordered online at http://www.gro.gov.uk/

TNA Website Opening Page
The TNA home page is very informative and filled with options for searching more than just the UK National Archives. The portal for this search is the same as listed above http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. This page can be overwhelming for a first time user so steps to conduct a search will be explained in the following outline. These steps will describe some of the categories under key tabs and how to input search terms that will yield results.

The TNA website is constantly evolving with pictures, quick links and banners but the grey tab banner at the top of the home page stays the same. Please get familiar with the two tabs, Research and Learning, or Search the archives.

The tab Search the archives opens a page which will introduce the immense collection of records. It references many archive collections in addition to the TNA, i.e. Access to Archives (A2A) which contains internet links to catalogues from archives throughout England dating from the 900s. The links on the left bar and those in the center are not the same. The center highlighted area names the archives, whether online or accessible by online catalogue, and points out offerings of record collections that can be downloaded for a fee. The left bar is a condensed version of the center area focusing on those collections used more frequently.

The Catalogue
The Catalogue is the center focus for all National Archive quests. An archive catalogue is not like a library catalogue. The difference must be understood before undertaking any search. In libraries books are organized by subject classifications, i.e. history, biographies but archives are arranged by collections or in the case of the TNA by the department which created them. Each department is identified by a series of letters, i.e. WO=War Office, PROB=Probates or PLC Poor Law Commission. Within each departmental code or grouping of records is a separate series number (sometimes called a class). When looking for a record or “piece” all identifying classifications are required, i.e. Class or Department, series number and piece number. References are always written in the same way: departmental code, series and piece number with a space between the letters and series, then a forward slash between the series and piece. For example: WO 364/1100 or MH 10/86-91. These numbers are needed when requesting any information, whether online or onsite.

Reference Codes and Descriptions
Descriptions of each series, what they contain, details of findings aids, how and why these records were created, can be found in the catalogue. To get to these descriptions, click on The Catalogue then enter a department code and series number in the top left box where it says: Go to reference. The next page will reveal the context of the department records, which division created this record and what these pieces contain. An example is WO 363/A 127 which are records created by the War Office, service records of World War I soldiers, the “A” is for soldiers with the last name beginning with A on piece 127. After the context description is a record summary. This gives the dates covered in this series and their availability to the public.If you would like to find the exact piece for the alphabetical listing of a particular surname enter the reference again in the box titled "browse from this reference." This will open a description of all surnames in each piece. Many of these service records are in the online digitized collection so directions to search this page will be explained below.

Documents Online
Under the grey tab "Search the Archives" is the option to go to Documents Online. Those record collections online that are used most often and are most popular have links on this first page, i.e. campaign medals, wills, royal marine service records, register of seaman's service. If more detail is desired on the total of online collections, there is a browse button which opens a box of categories most popular for family historians.