|
You must enter a word or phrase in the first box.
To narrow down your search you may use covering dates.
Please note that dates exist for over 90% of piece and items and regnal years will be retrieved, but some entries have blank dates (particularly at sub-series level) or dates in an unconvertible form.
Searching by department
You may restrict your search to specific departments (WO, FO, HO, CAB) or record series (WO 97, FO 371, HO 144) typing their code in the last box. To search over several codes, separate them with a comma (,) and a space (AIR, WO). To exclude a code type NOT before the code: NOT WO
You can see a list of the most popular department codes.
Do not miss our Search tips below.
This search finds data under title, scope and content, arrangement and administrative history at all levels (see the Glossary and Catalogue structure for information on fields and levels).
The search is limited to 3000 results. Within a record series (like WO 339) only the first 300 results will be displayed If you have more you will need to Refine your search. Searches can be refined by:
- Being more specific with your search terms
- Adding AND and a second or third keyword
- Using double quotation marks to find only exact expellings ("Stephens" will not find Stephen)
- Entering a narrower range of dates
- Restricting the search to a government department or record series
Search tips
- The system will find the most common spelling variations of your keywords. Calibrate will find calibrated, calibrating, calibration. To search for exact spelling only use double quotation marks: "Stephens" or "Hess".
- Phrases: You can search for several words in order in a phrase. For example: Enigma machine, Council of Europe, health and safety, etc. The Catalogue will not find entries with those terms if they are not next to each other and in the same order.
- To search for several words placed anywhere link your keywords with AND. For example, 11 AND Argyll, Edward VIII AND abdication. To link keywords AND must be in upper case, as searches for 'health and safety', 'foot and mouth' or 'health and safety AND nuclear' are also possible.
- You can also use NOT, NEAR, OR. For example, Edward VIII NOT abdication, International NEAR development, Ghana OR Gold Coast, nuclear OR atomic.
- You will need to use Brackets to indicate the order of the search in longer or more complex searches. For example:
- development AND (Palestine OR Israel OR West Bank)
- It is possible to search for terms with hyphens as in inter-allied or co-operative.
- To find spelling variations or terms that may have foreign (special) characters use a question mark. For example, Sm?th will find Smith and Smyth; wom?n will find woman and women. Br?nn?ysund finds Brönnöysund and would find Bronnoysund too.
- A wildcard (*) extends the possibilities in an uncertain search. Robin* will find Robins, Robinson; Pira* will find pirate and piracy but will also retrieve Piraeus or Pirani.
- Apostrophes are recognised as punctuation, not search terms. This default allows the retrieval of possesive forms. For instance, a search for peasant finds peasant's and peasants' as well as peasant and peasants. If you need to retrieve apostrophes, substitute them with a space: Bo ness finds Bo'ness. Pattern of retrieval for words with apostrophe:
- O’Brien finds Obrien
- O Brien finds O’Brien
- *Brien finds anything ending with "Brien" (including Obrien, O'brien and De Brien).
To access more advanced search options, click 
|
Help section 
