Genealogy Chat

Anyone used the search facility recently? You can search for names and it gives results from both A2A and the Catalogue. It's a bit slow and unwieldy, but the results are fascinating.

Website address is: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk Enjoy.

Oh Brenda, isnt that SO much better now! You can enter a word or name and it doesnt just bring up those brief little summary of where the info is found, it actually tells you a summary of each result. Brilliant - think I may have found a will in the 17th century in Horstead by a Breeze (who married into my Horsteads) Thanks very much.

Hi Heather I've been growling and muttering as I chased round the site to find the Catalogue. When I finally surrendered and tried the site search, I found that some events had related documents both at Kew and in some county record offices. Some of the single hits that I haven't bothered to look at at A2A actually turned out to be relevant. (Meanwhile I forgot to check out my supermarket delivery and have lost my slot!)

When do poeple find this site is besy for, ie what time period / area? Have got a lot to search wondered where to start.

Tom, it has stuff back to virtually domesday! Just depends on what you are looking for - obviously it doesnt have census or bmd or anything like that. Has records about parishes, landowners, wills, legal docs, insurance policies etc, even school reports in some cases. Tells you where documents are held. And of course you can download some wills from the documents on line facility. Why dont you just go there and have a fiddle about, entering places or names etc.