Our online Catalogue is a major advance in making our records available to you. You can now search for documents at home and even order them so that they are ready for you when you come to visit us.

The Catalogue was carefully designed to be as easy to use as possible. Whatever your area of research, you should be able to quickly track down the records you need.

The 1901 online census for England and Wales offers a great opportunity to find out about the people and places recorded on the night of the census, 31st March 1901. It is ideal for researching your family tree or tracing the history of your house or street.

You can search by name, address or place. Searching the index is free and there is a small fee for downloading the images and information from the actual census entry.

If you do not have access to the Internet at home, try your local library, record office or cyber cafe. Microform copies of the 1901 census are also available at The National Archives in Kew, the Family Records Centre in Islington or in libraries and record offices throughout England and Wales.

Some of our most significant and exciting records are available to download on DocumentsOnline. You can see more than one million wills, including Shakespeare's will, WW1 medal index cards or new government releases without ever having to come to The National Archives.

For a small charge you can download and print copies of these incredible links to the past.

DocumentsOnline is ideal for family and local historians, schools and the casual browser. We constantly update the site, so remember to visit us regularly and see what's new in online history!

Moving Here is a website that looks at the experience of immigration to England over the last 200 years. The site currently focuses on four communities, Caribbean, Irish, Asian and Jewish.

We worked with museums and institutions across the country to create this unique resource. With the wealth of records, pictures and stories it holds, Moving Here is now the first stop for anyone interested in the story of immigration.

This site gives access to documents from the Macmillan government of 1957-1963. These include accounts of cabinet meetings, material from the prime minister's private office and reports from cabinet committees.

The papers deal with domestic, Commonwealth, foreign and defence policy. They also cover the end of attempts to build a British nuclear deterrent and the adoption of American missiles.

For both the expert and layman this site gives a behind the scenes look at a time of great change for the United Kingdom.

Macmillan online was created in partnership with Adam Matthews Publications.

The National Digital Archive of Datasets (NDAD) preserves the electronic records generated by government in the same way that The National Archives look after paper records.

In many cases you can look at these electronic records online. Subjects on the site at the moment include crime figures, the census of schools, birth statistics and information on beer duty.

The University of London Computer Centre and Library operate the NDAD site under contract to The National Archives. A useful online newsletter keeps users aware of updates and changes on the site.

The E179 database provides a wealth of information on medieval and early-modern taxation records and their background.

The database currently contains details of over 27,000 documents relating to lay taxation in England and Wales, with new information being added on a monthly basis. It can be searched by a variety of criteria, and provides greater access to the records, as well as details of newly-discovered material and scholarly descriptions of the various taxes of the period.

The project has been in progress since 1995, with the generous assistance of various funding bodies and institutions, particularly the University of Cambridge, the University of Wales, Bangor and the University of York.

The Equity Pleadings database paints a fascinating picture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

These legal papers relate to domestic and trade disputes, the slave trade, women's rights under the law, piracy, mining and pay disputes. You can search the 30,000 records in the series by reference, name, place or even subject.

Again, the cataloguing of Equity Pleadings was a joint project achieved with the help of other institutions.

The library was originally started to help staff with their work. It is now open to the public and reflects the wide range of the records. We also have a small collection of genealogical books at the Family Records Centre.

In the library at The National Archives there are about 65,000 books, pamphlets, yearbooks and journals. We also have a growing collection of CD-ROMS and online resources.

Other helpful features include self-service photocopying, quiet study areas (with sockets for laptops) and an enquiries desk.

Visit the online library catalogue to learn more.