The National Archives | Learning guides | Family history | Introduction: "We hold historic records (archives) created or collected by central government of the United Kingdom, and of the central English law courts. It has rightly been called 'The Nation's Memory', as it houses material spanning a thousand years of our history. The business of central government has long had an impact on everyone's life. Millions of people are named in nationwide census returns of population and taxation lists, in military service papers, records about public officers, merchant shipping, litigants, emigrants and immigrants and a host of other sources.
We may not always be the best place to begin tracing your ancestry, but you will almost certainly find it invaluable at some stage of your research, to provide that vital link between generations or individuals, fix people in place and time, or fill gaps in your family's story.
We also maintain the National Register of Archives, which contains useful information about non-governmental records, and the Manorial Documents Register, which contains information about surviving manorial documents and their known location. These two resources provide further avenues to explore for records held outside The National Archives."