Records being moved

Voluntary projects

Here are some of the projects the Friends are working on to make the Catalogue more accessible to researchers.

COPY 1 project

This project, to create an online index to photographs registered for copyright at the turn of the 19th century, has recently finished. Descriptions are now available in the Catalogue, thanks to the hard work of our Friends and volunteers: COPY 1 on the Catalogue

WO 121/ WO 119 project

If you have visited The National Archives to search for a military ancestor, you have probably encountered the WO 121 series, which contains certificates of service for pensioners of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, similar to the discharge documents in WO 97 and associated correspondence. The records are currently arranged by date, making them difficult to access. The Friends have completed the indexing of WO 97 and recently also finished WO 121; they have now started on WO 119.

Friends and volunteers working on the WO 119 project are helping to make the records searchable by surname and regiment. This is a very important ongoing project to catalogue the Kilmainham discharge records, which will help researchers looking for soldiers who were discharged when serving in Ireland, wherever they were born.

Chancery Proceedings project

The Court of Chancery dealt with thousands of disputes over inheritance, wills, lands, debts, marriage settlements and apprenticeships. The Friends and other volunteers work from home to input many printed volumes of Chancery records into the Catalogue.

This project will enable researchers to access the records according to name, occupation or place - a great resource for academic and family historians.