How to search
Getting started
You can start an archives search straight from the home page. Just type any word or phrase into the search box. For example, this could be a place, a person’s name or a topic.
- Doing this allows you to find any catalogue descriptions of archival items where the place, name or topic you used as your search term has been included in the description text; different words can be used to describe the same thing, so it can be good to try a few different options.
- If you want to narrow your search down, use the ‘Advanced Search’ option just under the box on the home page. This will give you a set of filters to help you in your search.
- See our search guidance or filter help pages below for advice on how to find what you are looking for in the catalogues on Your Scottish Archives.
Searching for archival material can be fun and extremely rewarding. However, it can also be frustrating so patience and time are absolute necessities. Just because you can’t find what you are looking for quickly or easily, doesn’t mean that relevant archives don’t exist.
Finding what is there – bear in mind that:
Offensive language and distressing subject matter
Archives hold original material created at different points in history. This can mean that some items in archives express viewpoints or describe practices that are considered unacceptable today.
In some cases, where offensive language appears in a key part of the original item, such as the title of a report or the original label for a photograph, you may find this language repeated in a catalogue description. Original language may be indicated by using quotation marks, e.g. “Original Offensive Title” or by adding the Latin word ‘sic’ to mean ‘quoted as in the original text’ e.g. “Original Offensive Title” [sic]
If you find offensive language or content in a description, please do contact the holding archive service. You can find the contact details by clicking on the ‘repository’ name next to the description you have found. Archivists are always trying to improve the catalogues available, but do bear in mind that this is an ongoing process.
Dates
The dates shown for an archival description indicate when the item was created; it may be an estimate. In some cases you may see qualifiers such as ‘circa’ often shown as ‘c.’ which indicates a date provided is approximate.
Spelling
Historical spellings are not always consistent – you can try searching for multiple versions of the same term by using the wildcard *, for example M*cDonald searches for MacDonald and McDonald, or by using these Boolean tips.
Remember that place names and boundaries have changed a lot throughout history, so check to see if the place you are looking for had a different name in the past.
Our Discover Archives area has resources on historic boundaries and place names.
Catalogue terms
If you are unsure what a description you have found means, have a look at the glossary of archival terms.
Ask an archivist
Not all the information about a collection is always in the catalogue listing. When in doubt, contact the archivist by clicking on the name of the holding repository to find out the repository’s contact information.
What isn’t there:
Archivists aren’t robots
Archival descriptions are created by professional people and volunteers, working in different kinds of organisations. Although there are recognised standards there will be variations in how archives are described, and how many items in an archive have already been listed.
Work in progress
Not all archives in Scotland have joined Your Scottish Archives, and not all items held by those taking part have been added yet. You may need to get in contact with the archive to find out if they hold material you are looking for.
How archival collections are listed
Archival collections may be listed in a hierarchy. This gives a summary description of a whole group of archival papers followed by more detailed descriptions of smaller sections of the collection below – it can look a bit like a family tree.
This description ‘level’ will be indicated in the catalogue description – if you are looking at a lower level description, such as for a single item, you can find out more about the collection, associated people or historical context by looking at the series or collection description.
When a description relates to a group of items, for example a series or file description, the description may offer a summary of the main items or themes, but may not list each item present individually. If you think the themes or dates of the group of items described sound promising, you can try contacting the archive holder for more information.
Visit our Discover Archives section for more inspiration.
Advanced searching allows you to make your search more precise by choosing and combining which topics, names, places or dates are most relevant to your research, or by exploring archives by subject.
Key words or phrases
Use this free text box to add in whatever you are looking for, and this will look for these words in all the catalogue fields.
To look for an exact phrase, with all words next to each other as you have entered them, use quotation marks e.g. “Mary Queen of Scots”.
To find all the words, including when they do not appear together, use +, e.g. “Mary+Queen+of+Scots”
Title
Searches only the titles provided for archival records. This may be the title of a whole collection, series or individual item. Titles of archives are can be supplied by the cataloguer or can be the title as given in the original archival item, e.g. ‘ Maps of Scottish Railways, ‘Regional Bird Materials’, or “Diary of Thomas Cairns Livingstone, 1913”.
Creator
The person, family or organisation that is responsible for bringing the archival materials together e.g. Anna MacDonald, the Elder family, or the Arbroath Infirmary; or it can also be the author of a document or maker of an item.
Date
The dates that the items or materials within the archival collection were originally made. You can choose to look for an exact date or for a dates falling within a range.
Subject
This searches the key words or index terms added to descriptions of archive papers by the person cataloguing the collection to indicate important subjects or themes e.g. “Shinty”, “tweed”, “Education”.
Note that not all possible subjects are always included, and subject indexing is not completed for all archival items that are described. Just because a subject you are looking for does not appear in this field, does not mean it does not appear in the archives.
Place
This searches the key words or index terms added to descriptions of archive papers by the person cataloguing the collection to show which geographic locations are associated with the collection. e.g. “Glasgow”, “Isle of Mull”.
Note that not all possible geographic locations are always included, and place indexing is not completed for all archival items that are described. Just because a place you are looking for does not appear in this field, does not mean it does not appear in the archives.
Person
This searches the key words or index terms added to descriptions of archive papers by the person cataloguing the collection to highlight the people, organisations or families who are strongly associated with the archival papers or feature in them e.g. “Robert Louis Stevenson”, “Dewars”.
Again, note that not all possible individuals are always included, and person indexing is not completed for all archival items that are described. Just because a person you are looking for does not appear in this field, does not mean the person does not appear in the archives.
It can also be helpful to filter your search results or look at our search tips.
Use filters to narrow down your results from a broad search. The filter results are given in order of numbers of hits.
Subject
Key words or themes that have been assigned to descriptions by cataloguers, to help to highlight the main topics the material covers.
A collection can never be comprehensively indexed, so subjects should be used as a guide rather than something definite.
Note that not all collections will have subject index terms added to their catalogues.
Author/Creator
The individual or organization responsible for the making, keeping or collecting the described materials before these were placed in an archive. An archive collection usually come from the same place or source (sometimes called provenance), and therefore a recognised creator or creators. For example, the “creator” of the Papers of Canon Alfred Leslie Lilley is Alfred Leslie Lilley, although he did not author or physically create all the individual items within the collection. The creator of the Hay and Woolfson Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Ephemera Collection is Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Ltd., as they are responsible for the existence of the archive, which was created in the course of the everyday business activities of the company.
Date
The date the archival item or items were created. If you enter a single date. e.g. 1763, the search will also include descriptions with date spans that include your date, e.g. 1680 – 1780.
Level
The level shows if the description you have found relates to a group of items, a series within the group or a single archival item. You can use the level filters
- Collection: This is the ‘top level’ of description and typically describes a complete group of archival materials, e.g. ‘ Isobel Wylie Hutchison Collection ‘ or ‘Papers of Erwin Finlay Freundlich’. The ‘top level’ may exist on its own, or ‘lower levels’ of the collection, such as series, may also form part of the whole description.
- Section: This is the ‘middle tier’ between the top level and an individual item level description. Typically it is a series, sub-series or file. The description may or may not then have lower individual item level descriptions.
- Item: This is typically the lowest level of description. An ‘item’ within an archive typically represents one single physical entity. Sometimes files are described as individual items. This is not an exact science due to the complex nature of archives and the choices made as to how to represent the hierarchy.
Repository
Your Scottish Archives searches across archival items held in many different collections across Scotland. You search within all repositories by default, but the filter allows you to select one or more institutions by name. For each search result you can see the list of repositories that have matching descriptions and the number of descriptions, up to the first 20 institutions.
Digital Content
Enables you to select descriptions that either display images, or provide links to digital content that they describe.
Note that only a small proportion of archives are digital or digitised, and Your Scottish Archives does not always have links if digital content does exist, because the cataloguer has to choose to link to it in the description that we have received from them. The content is held on external sites outside of Your Scottish Archives, so we are not responsible for the maintenance of these links, which may show ‘page not found’ if they are not maintained.
Place
The geographic location of the archival material.
Note that not all collections will have place index terms added to their catalogues.
For further help, see our advice on advanced searching and tips on searching.