Archives research

Have any of you guys ever had occasion to do a search through the National Archives at Kew?Despite giving them a doc.no,kindly supplied by a member on here(Horten XVIII thread) they seem to be unable/unwilling to do a paid search.So I’m contemplating a 500 mile round trip to search myself.Im hoping an early start to arrive about opening time will give me a full day to find the info.Anyone have any experience of the place?
Stuart

Stu,

If you did around on the TNA website there are lists of private researchers who will, for a reasonable fee, check the documents out and photograph pages and email them to you as per required.

I feel your pain though – I live abroad and had to wait 8 years to be able to get to the TNA and photograph a document I knew they had and needed for research. :/

I’ll send you a PM, lanc35.

Do you want to send me the link to the Tokyo file?

Don’t get your hopes up as I won’t be able to read it, but maybe someone I know might be able recognize some of it.
They are unlikely to want to read pages of the stuff, but even a little bit might help you.
Let me know if you are looking for something specifically in the file.

Thanks for the tip Beermat, I’ll see if I can get my quotes to a more reasonable figure.

cheers,
Greg

For those of us overseas, the quotes they give for scanning a document are quite a disincentive. For example £8.40 for 3 pages can make for an expensive game of trying to find information. Biggest quotes I’ve had have been over £1,500… in those cases it’s probably cheaper to fly over there for a ‘working’ holiday. I guess there is an upper limit they’ll consider as I’ve had some come back as ‘too many pages’.

I empathise, lanc35. Trying to fit in visits to Kew (as well as county archives) with other commitments on my short and infrequent visits to the UK is not easy. Trying to put a quart into a pint pot comes to mind! But it can be both better and worse. I’m still trying to find someone in Japan, who has a comprehension of ‘archaic’ (in this case early 20th century) Japanese characters, who can read and give me the gist of the contents of a file which, fortunately, I could access in its entirety online from Tokyo – but, of course, it meant absolutely nothing to me!. Is there anyone out there with sensible suggestions?

The staff will also select parts of documents to scan at quotation stage, if you need them to – so for example you can say ‘any tables of figures’ or ‘any pictures of ‘X’ without seeing the document, if necessary. This is a way to avoid unnecessary copying expense – if there are no pictures of ‘X’ in a selected document, then the doc won’t get copied at all. I haven’t tried ‘any references to ‘X’ – may not work, as this is approaching ‘research’..

Thank you for the kind offer, I’ll keep it in mind.

It would certainly help in identifying relevant documents as like I said you don’t really know what each document holds.
Squadron ORBs are ok as you pretty much know what you are getting. I haven’t got any recently, but I hope you can still get them by the year and not only by the month now (x2) online.

Thanks again,
Greg

From my perspective, you are lucky that a drive is an option 🙂

For those of us overseas, the quotes they give for scanning a document are quite a disincentive. For example £8.40 for 3 pages can make for an expensive game of trying to find information. Biggest quotes I’ve had have been over £1,500… in those cases it’s probably cheaper to fly over there for a ‘working’ holiday. I guess there is an upper limit they’ll consider as I’ve had some come back as ‘too many pages’.

Anyway, we are lucky that the scanning service is available, but I wish they’d change their business model to something more affordable.

It may be worth asking kindly a forumite if they would photograph them for you. There are several people here who often visit and we have at least one person already offering to help. I go semi often and would be happy to help forumites out, send me a pm if you are interested.

From my perspective, you are lucky that a drive is an option 🙂

For those of us overseas, the quotes they give for scanning a document are quite a disincentive. For example £8.40 for 3 pages can make for an expensive game of trying to find information. Biggest quotes I’ve had have been over £1,500… in those cases it’s probably cheaper to fly over there for a ‘working’ holiday. I guess there is an upper limit they’ll consider as I’ve had some come back as ‘too many pages’.

Anyway, we are lucky that the scanning service is available, but I wish they’d change their business model to something more affordable.

Stuart

As AgCat has said TNA are not researchers so will not go looking in a file to see if there’s material in it that might interest you, but they will copy the entire file (for a fee). I don’t know which particular file you’re interested in – the TNA search engine throws up 5 pieces in the AIR, AVIA and DSIR classes with the word Horten in the title and there are probably many more relevant pieces that don’t have Horten in the title – but I would not imagine these are large files. I suspect they contain tens of pages rather than thousands – like some squadron ORBs do. I’d also expect all of them to be paper originals rather than microfilm or fiche. Therefore the cost of copying them should be small. I would imagine paying a professional researcher would cost more.

As Edgar notes you will need to get a reader’s card – a process that will take no more than 20 minutes – and once you have one you can use it to reserve a seat and order documents from any of the PCs dotted around the place. These days documents take around 30-40 minutes to arrive at the reading room where they are put in a locker with the same number as your chosen seat. So, with a bit of luck, you should have the file you seek in your hands within an hour of walking through the door.

You can use a camera to copy documents (no flash allowed) or you can copy them using the document scanners in the reading room and either print them (chargeable) or have links to the scans emailed to you (free). If you intend to do the latter, make sure you provide your email address when you get your readers ticket.

I don’t know how you plan to get there, but Kew tube station is only a five-minute walk away and car parking at the archives is (currently) free. I’ve never had a problem getting a space in the car park – particularly when I drove there on a day when the archives were closed. TNA is closed to the public on Sundays and Mondays, Bank Holidays (and the Saturdays and other odd days around them) etc, so check the website for closure dates before planning your visit.

HTH
Niall

I go quite regularly (was there last Saturday,) and a lot depends on the nature of the file. Some are on microfilm, so merely require you to run through, picking out the pages you require.
For files which contain papers, you will need a Reader’s Ticket, which requires two “proofs of identity,” preferably with a photo, e.g. passport and driving licence.
Once you have your ticket, you select a computer terminal, book a table, order the file(s,) then wait around 30-45 minutes for them to arrive.
There are tables with columns, to which you can attach a camera, so there’s no need to pay for photocopies.
You’ll need to leave any coats in a downstairs locker, and take only a pencil (without a rubber on the end,) with which to make notes.
Your best (initial) bet would be to ask someone, who’s a regular visitor, if he/she would be good enough to have a look at the file, and report back, then you would know if your intended trip would be worthwhile. All visitors are allowed a maximum of 21 files, per daily visit, so it isn’t that difficult to fit in the odd one; I checked one, for a friend in the U.S., only last week, and am planning my next visit for Saturday week.

TNA staff will not undertake research for you but you can get a quotation for the document or part of it to be scanned and supplied to you as a download or on disc. There are also a number of independent researchers familiar with TNA procedures who will undertake research for you on payment of a fee.