Using Archives.com

Learn More About our New Experience on Archives.com

Something look different? To better serve our users, we've created a new experience for you on Archives.com. Due to an older infrastructure, we are not able to continue to develop our features or expand our collections on the old Archives.com. We've created this new experience for you to give you access to more content With this upgrade, in the coming months, you can expect the following: Updated collections Improved ancestor... Read More »

Search - Learn More

Learn More About Search on Archives Archives.com has billions of family history and vital records. Use the strategies below to help you find your family. How does search work? When you run a search on Archives, we do our best to match our results to the name, date, and location information you provided in your search. If we do not have a record that meets your exact search criteria, we... Read More »

Search - Too Many Results?

Too Many Results to Look Through? If you are looking for someone with a relatively common name, you may have a large number of results to look through. Adding more details to your search will give you more relevant results at the top, but will not reduce the number of results that you receive. Remember that the most relevant results will always be at the top. Archives includes search results... Read More »

Search - Can't Find What You're Looking For?

Can't Find What You're Looking for? Solution: Look for information about the person in a different record type. We may not have a specific record you are searching for, but we may have the information you are looking for in another record type. Using our filters you can browse different record types and collections to find the information you need. 1. Change your seacrch results' record type by changing the... Read More »

Searching Archives Using Filters

Learn More About Search on Archives Archives.com has billions of family history and vital records. Use the strategies below to improve your search and help you find your family. Can't Find What You're Looking for? Solution: Look for information about the person in a different record type. We may not have a specific record you are searching for, but we may have another record with information about the person you... Read More »

Saving Records on Archives.com

Archives.com tries to make it easy for you to sift through records for the right person you're looking for. Using your Saved Records Folder can help you flag records for later review and make your time searching more efficient. Start by using the Archives search page and searching for the person or record you are hoping to find. Once you have clicked to see a record that you think might... Read More »

Using the New York State Census on Archives.com

The censuses are a great resource for finding your ancestors in the U.S., but what about state censuses? The U.S. Federal Census is taken every 10 years and enumerates the whole United States with the first census being taken in 1790. The 1940 U.S. Census is the most recent census available to search online. Often individual states would conduct their own censuses that would take place in the off years... Read More »

Labeling Your Search Results on Archives.com

Often in your research you might find that it's hard to keep track of what you have already searched and what results you've already looked at. Archives has made it simple and easy for you to catalog your search results using labels like "Found It", "Not It" and "Maybe". This makes it much simpler to dig through several search results and see exactly what you know is not the record... Read More »

Searching By Record Type on Archives.com

If you have searched on Archives.com, you've probably done so from our search form on the member homepage. This is a great tool that can bring you results from a wide variety of databases, but what if you're looking for something a bit more specific? Searching by record type can be the solution to narrow down your results while still conducting a broad search. Click the "Search" button at the... Read More »

Using the New Show More Feature

It's not unusual to find several people with the same name in the census. Going through the results to find the right one just got easier, thanks to the new "Show more" feature. Read More »

Finding Collections on Archives.com

Searching across all 2.6 billion records on Archives.com is easy. But how can you find out what collections are available? This video will show you all about the Collections page, including the section on new and updated collections and how to find collections for a specific location. Read More »

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