The National Archives

The UK National Archives (formerly The Public Records Office) collection of records is vast, so please visit their website, where the archive can be searched. Records useful from a genealogical perspective include census records, military papers, passenger lists and wills amongst many other categories.

The National Archives do not hold births, deaths and marriages civil registration information, these are at the General Register Office, but the indexes can be consulted at TNA. The Family Records Centre has now closed and its services have transferred to TNA.

However, the National Archives will be home to the London Family Search Centre until, at least, the early part of 2013 and LDS films can be accessed there. Search hereto check films held on site.

Remote Access to Records

A large number of documents can be purchased in digital form on TNA's Documents Online service.

Very helpfully, copies (paper or digital) of records can be distance ordered for a fee. See Order copies of documents. When visiting the archives you can usually take digital photographs of a document (including of a microfilm reader screen), but check this with a member of staff to avoid any problems.

This Great War Forum thread dated March 2013 is about charges at the National Archives if you order a document, and the options available if you visit there.

FIBIS Resources

The Fibis Research team can visit The National Archives to obtain copies or details of information held for Fibis Members unable to access the records there. To enquire about this service please email research@fibis.org

Visiting the Archives

Please check TNA's "Visit Us" webpage for further information, including "How to obtain a reader’s ticket". The procedure also includes completing a short online document handling information tutorial, with test questions, similar to the information in "Handling documents". Some of the more popular records are available on microfilm in the reading rooms (Read the description of the records you are interested in to find out whether this applies). Readers' tickets are only required if you want to look at original documents.

As previously mentioned, some documents may be photographed.

Hints about visiting TNA, particularly about photography may be found in the following threads:
- WW2 forum thread "National Archives - Kew Tips?". Note that this thread has been running for some years, so pay more attention to the later posts.
- Great War Forum threads "What to expect at Kew (commenced February 2013) and National archives at Kew (commenced June 2013)

Reference to the online short Animated Guidesmay help in preparation for a visit to the Archives - subjects include using the catalogue and indexes, records held and arrangement of records.

Paying for research

The National Archives guide Paying for research includes a list of independent researchers.

Searching the records

The National Archives can be searched from the main page
Also useful is the new search facility, Discovery
The Access to Archives section of the National Archives website is a portal to enable searching of other archives in England and Wales. This search facility can be used to search the India Office Records catalogue held at the British Library (see link below).

External Links