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What is the Names Index?

The Names Index is an index of the names of persons, families, places and corporate bodies (e.g. government departments) which appear in NDAD's catalogues and administrative histories.

It is important to remember that the Names Index is an index of our catalogues and administrative histories. We have not directly indexed the datasets or documents which we hold. The fact that a name appears in a dataset or a document does not necessarily mean that it will appear in the Names Index. However, as our catalogues and administrative histories are designed to describe the contents of our archive, it is likely that they will contain any names which are significant (e.g. the name of the body which created a dataset). These names will, in turn, appear in the Names Index. Searching the Names Index is a way of identifying, via the catalogues and administrative histories, datasets and documents relating to the names in which you are interested.

The finding aids which the Names Index covers are:

• Administrative histories
• Series catalogues
• Dataset catalogues
• Dataset documentation catalogues.

Table catalogues (which describe the individual tables within a dataset) have not been indexed.

The Names Index is still under development. Many catalogues on NDAD's website are not yet indexed. If you can't find the name(s) in which you are interested in the Index, we would recommend that you also try a free-text search.

How to use the Names Index

The Names Index is divided into three alphabetical lists: Corporate names, Personal/family names, and Place names. Your first step, when searching the Index, is to choose the list containing the type of name(s) in which you are interested. You will need to return to the Index's home page every time you want to search on names of a different type.

Corporate names include the names of organisations, businesses, public agencies and departments, ships, exhibitions and conferences, and intellectual and artistic groups. Office holders are also treated as corporate names if the reference is to the office itself (e.g. "Secretary of State for Wales"), rather than to the name of an individual office holder (e.g. "Peel | Sir | Robert | 1788-1850 | Home Secretary"). Cases such as the latter are treated as personal names. Personal/family names include the names of individuals and the names of families. Place names include places within and outside the UK.

In order to make the lists of names more manageable, each list has been divided into groups of 40 names each (e.g. "Addison Committee - British Waterways Board"). Having selected "Corporate names", "Personal/family names" or "Place names" from the Names Index's home page, you should then select the group containing the name(s) in which you are interested. This will lead, in turn, to a display of the names in that group. You will need to return to the list of groups each time you want to search on names in another group. Check boxes next to names allow you to select names for searching (see 'Executing searches', below).

Entries in the Names Index have been formulated using the National Council on Archives' Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names (1997), known as NCA Rules. Names in the Index are divided into a number of elements, separated by the pipe symbol ("|"). In some cases, relationships have been established between names. The following sections explain these aspects of the Index. As NCA Rules is a complex standard, it is not feasible to explain every aspect of NDAD's implementation of the Rules.

Corporate names

Corporate names can include some or all of the following elements (optional elements are indicated by asterisks):

*Jurisdictional prefix | corporate name | *qualifier(s)

E.g.:

Northern Ireland | Department of the Environment

Office of Population Censuses and Surveys | 1970-1996

The jurisdictional prefix is only used for corporate bodies outside the UK, or where a prefix is necessary to distinguish between bodies with similar or identical names (e.g. the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland, as opposed to the Department of the Environment which formed part of the UK central government). The most commonly used qualifier is the covering dates of the corporate body, which can help to clarify the relationship between a body and its successor(s) and/or predecessor(s) (see below).

Relationships have sometimes been established between corporate names and the names of bodies which were their immediate predecessor(s) and/or immediate successor(s). In other words, the body (or bodies) which came immediately before and/or immediately after a corporate body. Related corporate names are listed underneath the name to which they relate, and are designated by 'RT'. Each related name links to the main entry for that name.

In some cases, corporate names have non-preferred forms, which indicate that you should search for the name using the preferred form of the name. E.g. "MAFF USE Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food | 1955-2001": "MAFF" is the non-preferred form directing you to use the preferred form, "Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food | 1955-2001". Non-preferred forms appear in alphabetical order in the lists of corporate names, and are also entered underneath the preferred forms to which they relate (preceded by the prefix 'UF').

The Names Index does not normally include the names of subordinate corporate bodies (e.g. the divisions or sections of a government department). We have only included subordinate corporate bodies where NCA Rules requires them to be indexed under their own name, rather than as a subheading of their parent body. This mainly applies to corporate bodies which have an identity which is distinct from their parent: e.g. "The National Archives" is entered directly under its own name rather than as a subheading of "Lord Chancellor's Department".

Personal/family names

For convenience, we have included personal names and family names in the same alphabetical list in the Names Index, although the two types have different elements.

The elements in personal names (optional elements are indicated by asterisks) are:

Surname | *pre-title | *forename(s) | *additional elements of name | date(s) | *title | *epithet(s)

E.g.:

Tansley | Sir | Arthur George | 1871-1955 | chairman of Nature Conservancy 1949-1953

George | David | Lloyd- | 1863-1945 | Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor

In the context of NCA Rules, pre-title is used for aristocratic designations (Lord, Lady, Sir, Dame and Hon), while title is used in the sense of landed or peerage titles. Titles of office and other descriptions of an individual's occupation, position, etc are treated as epithets. Covering dates may be approximate (indicated by "c" for "circa" or "fl" for "floruit"), if an individual's precise dates are not known.

Elements in family names (optional elements are indicated by asterisks):

Family name | family | *title or occupation | *territorial designation

E.g.:

Stewart | family | Earls of Galloway

There are no relationships between personal or family names. Very occasionally, a name may have one or more non-preferred forms. These are treated in the same way as non-preferred forms of corporate names (see above): i.e. the non-preferred form is entered in the index in its own right, referring to the user to the preferred form, and is also entered underneath the preferred form preceded by the prefix 'UF'.

Place names

Place names have relatively few elements, but potentially many relationships. The following elements are used by NDAD (optional elements are indicated by asterisks):

Place name | *qualifier

A qualifier is only used if it is necessary to distinguish between identical names of different places (e.g. "Gillingham | Kent" and "Gillingham | Dorset"), or where a place name's upper-level jurisdiction has changed over time (e.g. "Christchurch | Hampshire" and "Christchurch | Dorset").

For the purposes of indexing, NDAD uses three "levels" of place names. These are:

• Level 1: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, or overseas countries.
• Level 2: county, region, province, state or large urban area.
• Level 3: parish, ward, borough, village or town.

A place name may be related to other place names which are above it or below it in this hierarchy. These relationships are expressed, in the Names Index, as broader term (BT) and narrower term (NT) relationships. For example, the name of an English county might be linked to "England" as its broader place name at BT1 level, and to the names of individual parishes or towns as narrower place names at NT1 level. Each name entry includes any broader and narrower place names as subheadings.

In addition to hierarchical relationships, place names can also be linked to other place names via related term (RT) relationships. This convention is used in the following instances: (1) where a place name has changed over time, and different forms of the name appear in the Index; (2) where a place name had different higher-level jurisdictions at different times, and separate entries have been established with the names of the higher level jurisdictions as qualifiers (see above); and (3) where NCA Rules requires that parallel forms a place name should be established (this affects certain Welsh place names).

Very occasionally, a place name may have one or more non-preferred forms. These are treated in the same manner as non-preferred forms of corporate names and family names (see above): i.e. the non-preferred form is entered directly in the Index, referring to the preferred form, and is also entered underneath the preferred form preceded by the prefix 'UF'.

Executing searches

In all three sections of the Names Index, check boxes allow you to select names for searching. Check boxes only appear next to those names which we have used to index our catalogues and administrative histories (see 'What is the Names Index?', above).

Click on the box next to each of the names in which you are interested, so that there is a tick next to all your chosen names. As appropriate, change the box (nearer the top of the screen) which allows you to specify whether the search should find finding aids which have been indexed using ALL or ANY of the selected names. (ALL is equivalent to a Boolean AND search, ANY to a Boolean OR search). Click the Search button to launch the query.

Search results

The results of your search are shown as a list of links to the catalogues and administrative histories which match the search criteria. Your query, consisting of the names selected and whether the search was ANY or OR, is displayed at the top of the page. Each item in the list shows the title of the finding aid which matched your search, and its size in bytes and the date of its last modification. Each link will lead you to the catalogue or administrative history.