Archival descriptions
Descriptions can refer to individual objects, files, series, holdings, collections, levels of classification or to the complete tectonics of an archive. As a rule, physical units are only described for objects and records. These physical units may be consulted in the archives on the spot, taking into account the conditions of use. For some of the units there are digital copies on the website of the owning institution.The main menu at the top right and the link Documents will take you to an overview of all descriptions available in the database. These are initially limited to the highest level. You can remove this filter by closing the Only top-level descriptions tag. You can also search for specific documents using the search box at the top of the page or in the advanced search.
By restricting the search to results with the access point "Online" you can find specific descriptions that refer to digitized full texts or images.
Archival institutions
As a rule you will find the most important contact details of the owning institutions. On the linked websites, the archives often also offer information for visitors.The main menu at the top right and the link Archival institutions lead you to an overview of all institutions listed in the database. There you can search for specific archives in another search field. On the detail page of an archive, you can access an overview of the archived descriptions from this archive that have been included in the database by choosing Holdings. Please note that the descriptions in this database are usually only an excerpt. The respective institutions may also have other thematically relevant documents at their disposal. You can also search for specific archives using the search box at the top of the home page.
People and organisations
A number of persons and organisations mentioned in the archival descriptions are recorded separately. This list does not claim to be exhaustive and is continuously updated.You can access an overview via the main menu at the top right and the link Authority records. Many entries are linked to their respective Wikidata objects. This allows data from Wikidata to be displayed on the detail pages.
There they can then search for specific persons or organisations in another search field. The thesaurus is also available for this purpose. You can also search for specific individuals or organizations using the search box at the top of the home page.
Places
Some places mentioned in the archive descriptions are recorded separately. This list does not claim to be exhaustive and is continuously updated. Some of the locations are structured hierarchically. As far as possible, preference was given to historical spelling.You can access an overview via the main menu at the top right and the link Places.
There you can then search for specific locations in another search field. In addition, the map search is also available. There you can also search for historical places that are not (yet) linked to archive descriptions. You can also search for specific locations using the search box at the top of the page.
Subjects
Thematic access points should facilitate the search for relevant descriptions. The terms listed as topics in the database were generally adopted by the data-providing institutions. In addition, an attempt is made to automatically create links between a topic and other archived descriptions.The main menu at the top right and the link Subjects will take you to an overview.
There you can then search for specific topics in another search field. You can also search for specific topics using the search box at the top of the home page.
Genre
The term genre used here refers to the type of document in the broadest sense. The distinction can be made according to material (e.g. photo), purpose (e.g. correspondence) or collection context (e.g. estate).You can access an overview via the main menu at the top right and the link Genre.
There you can then search for specific genres in another search field. You can also search by genre in the field at the top of this page.
Search help
Simple search
The search is done via the input field at the top of this page.Upper and lower case are not taken into account. Neither is a distinction made between ß and ss. A distinction is made between the characters ä, ö, ü, é, í, à, á and their respective variants without diacritical characters a, e, i, o, u.
For incomplete search terms, a so-called truncation, you can use the asterisk * as a placeholder. If a search is unsuccessful, a new search with placeholders is automatically carried out. Certain control characters, such as / are actually excluded from the search. If such a character is used, for example, in identifiers, the entire search term is automatically placed in quotation marks and treated as a phrase. The search is cross-lingual, meaning that data objects in a particular language are found even if they are searched for in another of the three available languages.
The advanced search
You can find the advanced search via the icon
in the menu bar. You can use it to search specifically for archived descriptions. Various fields are available for this purpose, each of which can be filled with search terms.