search_records_advanced
Read-only
Filter National Archives Catalog records by date range, record group, microform number, ancestor NAID, or online availability to pinpoint the right records behind a common name.
Instructions
Search the Catalog with the filters that narrow a common name.
Every parameter is optional but at least one is required. The filters that
earn their keep for research are the date range, microform_publication
for an M-number you already cite, record_group_number or ancestor_naid
to stay inside one body of records, and available_online when you intend
to read pages rather than order copies.
Results are the same summaries search_records returns. Past 10,000 hits
use the next_search_after cursor rather than page; a common surname
passes that boundary easily.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| page | No | Page of results, 1-based. Ignored when search_after is given, and unusable past 10,000 results. | |
| exact | No | Match title, local_identifier and microform_publication in full and exactly, instead of by words within them. Use it when a words match returns too much, or you hold the complete title. | |
| limit | No | Maximum records to return (1-100). | |
| query | No | Full-text search across the whole description. | |
| title | No | Words to match in the record title. | |
| creators | No | The agency or person who created the records, matched against the creator headings. | |
| end_date | No | Latest date to include, in the same format as start_date. | |
| exact_date | No | A single date, YYYY-MM-DD. Cannot be combined with start_date or end_date. | |
| start_date | No | Earliest date to include, as YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD. Use the same precision as end_date. A surname search is usually only workable once it is bounded to a lifetime. | |
| tags_exist | No | True for records carrying citizen tags. | |
| data_source | No | 'description' for archival descriptions, 'authority' for authority records (people, organisations, topics). This narrows a search and cannot be one on its own. | |
| search_after | No | Cursor for paging past 10,000 results. You MUST pass '*' for the first page, then the 'next_search_after' value from each response. Starting from an ordinary search does not work: without '*' the results are relevance-sorted and their cursor is not resumable. Cannot be combined with page. | |
| ancestor_naid | No | NAID of an ancestor node: returns only records below it in the hierarchy. Use it to search inside one series. | |
| person_or_org | No | A person or organisation named in the description, either as its subject or in a role such as creator. Distinct from `creators`, which is the record's creating body only. | |
| recurring_day | No | Day as DD. Normally used with recurring_month. | |
| comments_exist | No | True for records carrying researcher comments. | |
| congress_number | No | Records of one numbered Congress, e.g. 55 for 1897-99. Private relief bills, petitions and claims naming individuals sit in the records of Congress. | |
| control_numbers | No | Any identifier NARA attaches to a record: accession number, local identifier, microfilm publication, NAID, transfer number or variant control number. For a citation whose kind you cannot name. | |
| recurring_month | No | Month as MM. With recurring_day, finds records dated to that day in any year -- a birthday across every census. | |
| reference_units | No | Name of the archive holding the paper, e.g. 'National Archives at St. Louis'. Comma-separate several. | |
| available_online | No | True for digitised records only -- those whose pages you can read now rather than order from a reading room. | |
| local_identifier | No | The archives' own identifier for the record, as printed in finding aids. | |
| type_of_materials | No | Material type, e.g. 'Textual Records', 'Photographs and other Graphic Materials', 'Maps and Charts', 'Moving Images'. | |
| contributions_exist | No | True for records carrying any contribution at all: a transcription, tag or comment. Someone has already worked on them. | |
| record_group_number | No | Record group number, e.g. '15' for Veterans Affairs. Scopes the search to one agency's records. | |
| geographic_reference | No | Place the records are about, matched against geographic subject headings, e.g. 'Franklin County (Pa.)'. | |
| level_of_description | No | One of recordGroup, collection, series, fileUnit, item. A case file is usually a fileUnit; a single page is an item. | |
| transcriptions_exist | No | True for records someone has transcribed; False for ones nobody has. Transcribed records are searchable by their text. | |
| collection_identifier | No | Collection identifier, the Presidential-library equivalent of a record group. | |
| microform_publication | No | Microfilm publication number, e.g. 'M804' for Revolutionary War pension applications or 'T624' for the 1910 census. This is the citation genealogists actually carry. | |
| include_extracted_text | No | Fold each hit's OCR text into the response, saving a call per hit: each record gains an extracted_text list with one entry per page that carries text, NARA's own OCR or a partner's, capped at 2000 characters each. It makes the response much larger, so use it on a narrowed search rather than a broad one; get_extracted_text returns whole pages. |