Family and local history

A guide to some of the more popular and useful sources for family historians, showing you:

 

• What the documents look like and what you may find in them
• How to find and use these records

A guide illustrating the types of documents that are useful for local and regional historical studies, and what you can learn from them.

Latin

Beginner’s Latin. A beginners' guide to the Latin used in documents between 1086 and 1733. It is the first online tutorial to help you learn the Latin from this period.

Advanced Latin. A step-by-step tutorial for taking your medieval Latin to an advanced level. Practise what you learn with interactive activities and extracts from original documents held at The National Archives.

How to handle documents

Everyone at The National Archives – both staff and readers – has a responsibility and duty to preserve all types of documents in our care for users like yourself, now and in the future.

Palaeography

Palaeography. Learn how to read and transcribe old handwriting. This interactive guide will mark your attempts at transcribing ten documents dating from the reign of Henry VIII to 1800.

Latin Palaeography. Learn to read the handwriting found in documents written in Latin between 1086 and 1500. Each of its ten lessons is constructed around a different document from The National Archives.