The National Archives’ Online Public Access (OPA) system will be down for maintenance from May 10 to May 25, 2013. We are in the process of rolling out a new version of OPA that will bring the catalog up to date. After the updated system is rolled out, the catalog will be updated on a [...]

Today’s post comes from Stephanie Stegman, Volunteer at the National Archives at Fort Worth The Fort Smith Criminal Case Files, 1866-1900 used to be difficult to search, but not anymore.  These Wild West court cases offer a glimpse of what life was like on the frontier between western Arkansas and the Indian Territory, which today is Oklahoma.  The National [...]

Jennifer Johnson, an exhibit curator at NARA, would love your help finding records in the National Archives with signatures.  She’s working on an exhibit and would love your suggestions. At the National Archives, we have a range of signatures from the infamous (Lizzie Borden), to signatures of individuals before they were famous (Julia Child’s OSS [...]

How do you like to get your news and information from the National Archives? Do you have access to what you need? How can we serve you better? Tell us what you think! Take this 10-minute survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/naraexternal The survey will be available until midnight, December 6. Thank you! * Update! The survey will now be [...]

On May 23, 2012, the White House released the Digital Government Strategy, which outlines how all federal agencies will work to make information and services easily accessible on the internet, anytime, anywhere, and on any device. President Barack Obama said, “Ultimately, this Strategy will ensure that agencies use emerging technologies to serve the public as [...]

June 18, 2012–the anniversary of the U.S. declaration of war against Great Britain–marked the official start of the bicentennial of the War of 1812.  To help celebrate that anniversary and bring attention to one of America’s lesser known conflicts, let’s take a look at some of the records of that war, starting with an essential [...]

In honor of Earth Day, we have added a great new set of photographs from the Documerica collection to Flickr.  Boyd Norton, a photographer who is still greatly involved with nature photography, took photos of the National Parks in the southwest, and documented solar energy projects in Arizona and strip mining in Montana as a [...]

Every April 22nd, people around the world celebrate Earth Day, a coordinated event to bring awareness and show appreciation for the earth’s natural beauty and resources.  Earth Day had a really big kickoff in US during the early 1970s as a way to teach others about issues that threatened our environment.  It is no coincidence [...]

  Calling all Citizen Archivists!  The 1940 census has been online for two weeks now.  We have heard many great stories about people you have found in the census.  We also know there are some of you who don’t know where people were living in 1940 and therefore cannot search the census without an name [...]

From coast to coast the National Archives is celebrating the 1940 census next week with events and workshops.  We hope you will join us! The National Archives at Boston will be offering a program called “The 1940 Census is Here Today!” on April 2nd.  Please email them at boston.archives@nara.gov for more information. The National Archives [...]