You’ll find an overview of State Archive records in the form of stock lists and reference catalogues. The archives consist of different stocks, depending on their origins (e.g. the Court Council of the Archdiocese of Cologne, the Head Office of the Province of Westphalia, the Department of Education of the Detmold Local Authority). In each instance, a stock list is provided, giving you an overview of what is available. Each stock usually has a reference catalogue associated with it, listing the files associated with the so-called stock holder, including the item numbers required for ordering records. (Please note that, in the archive portal, the term “book” is used as the traditional term for the archiving units of a stock).

The stock lists and retrievable resources of the State Archives form part of the NRW archive portal.

A search among archived stocks can be very different from using an internet search engine or even a library catalogue. Moreover, the titles of files are not standardised and are full of contemporary terminology; and, of course, any non-digitised handwritten records cannot be found in a digital search. Quite often, therefore, the initial search may not produce any results. Have a look at our Search Help to see what kind of search terms and strategies are most useful for a successful search experience and how you can avoid the frustration of negative results.

One important point is particularly relevant here: Although the State Archives are continually publishing reference catalogues and archived materials on the web, we cannot put all the catalogues online, due to legal, technical and organisational reasons. So any search you conduct in the archive portal will only ever cover the items that are actually available online.