How to search Royal Archives Online
Quick Search of the Catalogue
This is a simple search that is accessed via the search box in the top right hand corner of the page. By default, this search will only search across the Title and Description fields in the catalogue.
Type the word or phrase you wish to search for into the box and click the Search button.
Please note, where more than one search term is entered, the default is an AND search. For example a search of the words 'Windsor' plus ' London' will return catalogue records including both of these words.
Boolean Searches
It is possible to combine search terms in the Quick Search function using the Boolean "and, or, not" searching options:
+ represents Boolean And, meaning the search result must include the word.
- represents Boolean Not, meaning the search result must exclude the word.
| represents Boolean Or, meaning the search result may include this word.
Place one of these symbols before a word or phrase to apply the search. Use double quotation marks around a search term to return exact matching phrases.
For searching specifically for Georgian Papers material, please see the guide at the end of this section.
Advanced Search of the Catalogue
More detailed searches of the catalogue, using specific fields, can be carried out in the Advanced Search form. The following fields can be searched in this way:
Any Text
Use to search across all fields in all records. Any word or phrase can be searched for.
Reference
If you know the reference of the document or item that you wish to find in the catalogue, use the Reference field for your search. It is possible to use Wildcard (*) searching in the Reference field.
Collection
This field refers to the title of the collection e.g. Melbourne Papers; Cumberland Papers; Victorian Papers, Main Series: George III Calendar. If you know the collection you are particularly interested in, type keywords in to the Collection field search box. See the What's in the Catalogue section for lists of the collections available.
Title
Use to search for keywords in the Title field of the catalogue record. Please note that for collections catalogued at file level, details of document titles are listed in the Description field
Date
This is the date, or date range, of the item or collection. You can enter a specific date or a date range when searching e.g. 1787, 1890-1905, or 18th century.
Description
The description field is used in the catalogue record to expand on details in the title field so often contains people and place names, in addition to a synopsis or part transcriptions of the record in question. For collections catalogued at file level, the Description field is also used to list the reference, writer, addressee of the documents within that file.
Writer
To search for letters or documents written by a particular person, enter all or part of a name here. Please note that for collections catalogued at file level, details of writers are listed in the Description field.
Addressee
To search for letters or documents written by a particular person, enter all or part of a name here. Please note that for collections catalogued at file level, details of addressees are listed in the Description field.
Useful Information
Record Type
At file and item level, many records have been categorised by type to facilitate filtered searches. Examples of record types available are: Financial records, Correspondence, Diaries, Commonplace Books, Writings (documents), Legal documents, Wills, Maps (documents), Prints (visual works) and Registers (lists).
Extent
The extent of the record(s) given is appropriate to the level of description. Please note that at item level, one letter or memorandum equals one document, regardless of length.
Publications
Publications that are based on the records may be cited in the catalogue. For the Georgian Papers they are generally limited to the edited volumes compiled by Aspinall, Fortescue and Donne.
Digitisation notes and URL
Some catalogue records will contain information in the Digitisation Notes field relating to the availability of digitised images of the document(s) on external websites. The URL field contains the relevant link to the external website.
Tips and Tricks
For certain fields in the Advanced Search form (specifically any text, title and description), it is possible to ‘Refine Search Criteria’. Use this function to specify that the search results contain records with ‘all the words’, ‘at least one of the words’, or ‘without the words’, entered in the relevant search boxes. Boolean symbols are not required.
To search for an exact phrase use double quotation marks around the phrase, e.g. “Charlotte Finch”.
To perform a wildcard search, use an asterisk (*) to make a search more flexible, e.g. searching for Char* will find records including the names Charlotte and Charles.
Search results
Search results are presented with brief details in a hitlist. If they extend to more than one page click on Next and Previous to navigate through the pages.
To sort the results by collection, date etc., click on the small arrows to the left of the column headings on the search results page.
Click on a record to see its full details and to access the digitised images of the document (via the PDF icon)to which the catalogue record refers.
Hierarchy browser
In the catalogue record, click on the reference (highlighted in blue) to see where in the collection hierarchy a catalogue record belongs. It is possible to navigate the rest of the collection through the hierarchy browser and open specific catalogue records.
Searching for Georgian Papers Collections
As Royal Archives Online incorporates the Georgian Papers Online catalogue, some users may wish to continue to focus their search on Georgian material. The easiest way to find Georgian collections is to enter the catalogue via the Georgian Papers collections links in the What's in the Catalogue pages.
Alternatively entering the term GEO/* in the Reference field will limit the search results to Georgian collections.