The National Archives, has just announced the third in a series of online finding aid tools: the Donated Collection Explorer.
Rather than me trying to explain it, please go to the link above. As of September 2021, there are 829,815 scans from Donated Collections online representing 1.500% of the estimated total number of 55,316,116 estimated total textual pages. Yes, they have a ways to go, but it’s worth taking a look at. There are bound to be some gems in there to aid in your genealogy research.
The other two online collections are:
- Record Group Explorer includes all of NARA’s Record Groups (over 600) and provides access to over 140 million of our digital pages. As of September 2021, there are 143,040,642 scans online representing 1.239% of the 11,545,451,761 estimated total textual pages
- Presidential Library Explorer includes 14 Presidential Libraries and provides access to over 1.6 million digital pages. As of September 2021, there are 1,648,592 scans online representing 0.251% of the 656,946,000 estimated total textual pages across all Presidential Libraries
I haven’t taken a look at these priceless collections that are just being made available online, but I certainly will shortly.
