Simply put your chosen keywords (e.g. subjects, names or places) in the 'Quick search' box. Please note the search is not case sensitive.
The more terms you put in, the more focused should be your results as this quick search will bring up records containing ALL your search terms first. The fewer the matching terms, the lower the ranking in the results.
Try for example:
Bridge Bazalgette Hammersmith
Alternatively you can select the 'Advanced search' option and put your search terms in one (or even several) of the available boxes. If you were to put this line:
William Cribb Baker Wareham
into one of these boxes, they would search in the following way:
1. In the 'all these words' box:
William AND Cribb AND Baker AND Wareham
2. In the 'one or more of these words' box:
William AND/OR Cribb AND/OR Baker AND/OR Wareham
3. In the 'this exact wording or phrase' box:
"William Cribb Baker Wareham"
Please note that you do not have to type the words AND, AND/OR or " into the Search box
Put the word you want to search in the 'Quick search' box followed by 'NOT' (in uppercase) and the words you want to omit from the search. For example:
Shakespeare NOT Warwickshire
Austen NOT Jane
Go to the 'Advanced search' and put your reference in the 'this exact wording or phrase' box. Using this option will ensure that the constituent parts of the reference are all searched (and in the right order) regardless of any punctuation used.
For example, for a 'QS 23 1' search, any of these variations would be found:
QS/23/1
QS\23\1
QS-23-1
QS:23:1
QS.23.1
QS 23 1
If you want to refine your search, and search for records relating to a keyword held in a specific place you can go to the 'Advanced search', and, as well as entering a keyword in one of the three main search boxes (which must be entered in this type of search), also use the search box labelled 'Place', to specify a repository or geographical location.
You have several options depending how geographically specific you want to be.
Please note that you can try any combination of these options, too.
You could simply try putting in the name(s) of a town, city or county:
Suffolk
which would search all of:
Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch
Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch
Suffolk Record Office, Lowestoft Branch
To broaden this search:
Suffolk Norfolk
This would search all of:
Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch
Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch
Suffolk Record Office, Lowestoft Branch
Norfolk Record Office
You could try putting in a single part of a repository name:
Hospital
which would search all of:
Royal Free Hospital Archives Centre
Royal London Hospital Archives and Museum
St Bartholomew's Hospital Archives and Museum
University College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
You could try a specific section of a repository name using quotes:
"Regimental Museum"
which would search all of:
King's Own Scottish Borderers Regimental Museum
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Regimental Museum
Queens Lancashire Regimental Museum
York and Lancaster Regimental Museum
Or you could put in the exact full name of a repository using quotes:
"Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch"
which would search:
Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch
If you are interested in only searching for records held at one specific repository put the exact full name of that repository both in the 'Place' search box and in the 'this exact wording or phrase' box.
Doing this will bring up all the records on A2A held at a particular repository. You can also use the hyperlink created by doing this search to create a bookmark, if this is a search you do frequently.
The other option is to search the ARCHON directory. This has a straightforward list of everything on A2A for each repository, as well as links to a repositories own online catalogue and any other networks etc.
The 'Date range' search boxes on the A2A search screen work by searching the overall date range of a collection of records, rather than the date, or date ranges, of individual items within the collection. For example a search for 'airport' in Gloucester Borough records with the date range 1850-1855 will find hits from 1928-1938 because the overall dates of the catalogue are 1853-1988.
