search_records_advanced
Read-only
Apply multiple filters like date range, record group, or microfilm publication to search the NARA Catalog and find targeted archival records.
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. |