How much can you search?
More than 95% of the National Archives collection is described, but many are only described at the Series level, not the item level.
Research Librarian for Architecture
National Archives Research
- Guide to Federal RecordsSearch NARA's holdings of federal records at a very high level, to identify which record groups may have material relevant to your research topics. This includes records that originated in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches.
- Access to Archival DatabasesAAD is a search engine into some of NARA's holdings of electronic records. There are databases and indexes from more than 30 archival series, including over 350 data files totaling well over 50 million unique records; this number will continue to grow. Search by person, geographic areas, organizations, or dates.
- National Archives CatalogContains archival descriptions for 85% of the holdings of the National Archives, authority files, and over 2 million digitized copies of records.
- Records of Federal Domestic Contracts, Grants, and AwardsThis reference report provides an overview of the electronic data records in the custody of the National Archives that contain data on specific Federal expenditures, domestic contracts, grants, and awards or contain compilations of derived data based on awards by geographic areas. Full descriptions of the series and data files listed in this report are in the National Archives Catalog.
Archival Description Levels
