50 million historical documents posted on Web Saturday, April 5, 2003 Posted: 9:53 AM EST (1453 GMT)
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) -- Researchers, genealogists and the plain curious can now use the Internet to check more than 50 million historical records at the National Archives, from Civil War battles to family immigration files.
Before the system became available, people had to either visit the Archives and spend hours combing through documents or request the files by phone and pay to have them mailed.
Now, people can pull these electronic records at their own convenience, said Michael Carlson, electronic and special media records director for the archives. It's totally self-service from your desktop.
WHAT IS AAD? The Access to Archival Databases (AAD) System gives you online access to electronic records that are highly structured, such as in databases. The initial release of AAD contains material from more than 30 archival series of electronic records, which include over 350 data files totaling well over 50 million unique records. The series selected for AAD identify specific persons, geographic areas, organizations, or dates. Some of these series serve as indexes to accessioned archival records in non-electronic formats. The AAD system does not, however, support quantitative or statistical analysis of data.