Main heading

 What catalogues are available to the records held at Cheshire Record Office?

There are three main sources of catalogues and indexes to the archives held at Cheshire Record Office:

1. The printed catalogues in the public searchroom
2. Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies’ online catalogue
3. A2A (Access to Archives)

You may need to search them all in order to find what you need.

How do these catalogues differ?

Printed catalogues

The binders in the public searchroom include printed catalogues for most collections received prior to c1994. Until that date most collections were catalogued in detail but after 1994 cataloguing is more selective. As most records held at Cheshire Record Office were received before 1994, however, the searchroom binders include the vast majority of collections held.

Please remember that:

· Despite the fact that routine cataloguing stopped c1994, all records received after that date are described (in varying amounts of detail) on our own online catalogue

· Recent accessions of records are listed in a quarterly report in the searchroom.

· Staff in the searchroom will be happy to answer questions about our holdings

Our own online catalogue

All collections received since c1994 are described at least at ‘collection level’ on our online catalogues. This should be enough for you to decide whether the collection is worth investigating further. A programme of conversion of the printed catalogues is underway so our online catalogue is added to almost every day.

The online catalogue includes those collections which do not figure in the printed catalogues (ie collections received after c1994) and also full catalogues for major collections such as Leicester-Warren of Tabley estate records (DLT), Shakerley of Somerford estate records (DSS) and Greenall Whitley, brewers, records (DGB)

A2A (Access to Archives)

This is a programme coordinated by The National Archives to make catalogues from across England available online.

For Cheshire, A2A does not include:

• deposits received after 2003
• catalogues completed after 2003 (including such large collections as Leicester-Warren of Tabley estate records (DLT), Shakerley of Somerford estate records (DSS), Greenall Whitley, brewers, records (DGB)
• many minor collections (typically small collections relating to Chester)

What about the local studies collection?

The full catalogue of the local studies collection (books, pamphlets, journal articles, etc) is available at http://archive.cheshire.gov.uk.