What Are Primary Sources — and Where Can You Find Them?
There is a distinction at the heart of all historical research, and getting it clear in your mind early will save you a great deal of confusion later. It is the distinction between primary sources and secondary sources.
A primary source is an object or record created at the time of the events you are studying, by someone who was there or had direct knowledge of what happened.
A secondary source is something created later — a history book or article, for example — that interprets or summarises the primary evidence. Both have their uses. But they are not the same thing, and the difference matters.
Why primary sources are what you’re really after
Secondary sources are where most people start. A published history of your town or a family history someone else has already compiled. There is nothing wrong with this. Secondary sources can orient you and save you from having to work out everything from scratch.
But they have a fundamental limitation: they are someone else’s interpretation of the evidence. A local history written in 1920 reflects the assumptions of 1920. Of course, it may be that that someone from 1920 has a better grasp than we do about a particular era we are studying. They may help you to broaden your own understanding and step outside your own world view. An open yet critical mind is a helpful attitude.
There is also the problem of repetition creating venerability. A family tree compiled by a distant cousin may contain errors that have been copied and recopied until they look like established fact. Secondary sources are useful guides, but they are not the evidence itself. Whisper it, but even eminent historians have been known to make mistakes – and a lot of their work is opinion, though it should be based on the evidence they have gathered.
Primary sources are the evidence. They were created by people who usually had no idea that a historian would one day be reading them, which is precisely what makes them valuable. A census enumerator in 1871 had no motive to inflate the number of people in a household or invent occupations. A parish clerk recording a burial in 1743 was doing a job, not constructing a narrative. The gaps and errors in primary sources are real gaps and real errors — any editorial decision reflects agendas or beliefs of the time, not those of other periods.
What counts as a primary source?
The list is longer than most beginners expect.
Census returns, parish registers, tithe maps, trade directories, wills, probate inventories, court records, taxation records, estate accounts, school log books, electoral rolls, rate books, military service records, hospital admission registers, coroners’ inquest records, parliamentary reports, local newspapers — all of these are primary sources.
So are physical objects. A gravestone is a primary source. A building is a primary source. A field boundary that has been in the same place since the medieval period is a primary source, if you know how to read it.
So are photographs, maps, paintings, and plans — anything created contemporaneously with the events you are studying.
The key question to ask of any document is: when was this created, by whom, and for what purpose? Those three questions will tell you a great deal about how to interpret what you are reading.
Where are they held?
Primary sources are held in three main places: archives, online databases, and private collections.
Archives are the most important. The main repositories for local historical records in England are the county record offices — formally known as county archives or history centres — which hold the official records of their county: parish registers, manorial records, quarter sessions papers, tithe maps, estate records, and much more. Wales has the four Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru (the National Library of Wales) and the county archives. Scotland’s records are largely held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh, alongside local archives.
The National Archives at Kew holds records created by central government: census returns (via Ancestry and FindMyPast), military records, court records, taxation records, and a great deal more. It is one of the great archival collections in the world, and much of it is now available online.
Online databases — Ancestry, FindMyPast, the British Newspaper Archive, FamilySearch — have digitised enormous quantities of material that was previously only accessible in person. This has been a genuine revolution for local history research. But it is important to understand that the databases are not comprehensive. A great deal of material remains only in physical archives, and some of it has never been catalogued in a way that makes it discoverable online.
Private collections are the wildcard. Estate papers, family correspondence, business records, photographs — these can turn up anywhere: in attics, in solicitors’ offices, in local museums, occasionally in charity shops. Local history societies sometimes hold donated collections. Private individuals sometimes hold documents of considerable historical significance without knowing it.
How to find out what exists
Before you visit an archive or subscribe to a database, it is worth finding out what records actually survive for your area of interest. The Access to Archives (A2A) database and the National Register of Archives, both accessible through The National Archives website, catalogue holdings across hundreds of repositories. Most county record offices also publish their own online catalogues.
None of these catalogues is complete — archivists are perpetually working to catalogue material that has not yet been fully described. But they will give you a good sense of what’s there.
Primary sources are hiding in plain sight. They are in archives, in databases, in graveyards, in the fabric of buildings. The skills you’ll develop in this newsletter are, at their core, skills for finding them and making sense of what they say. And then what a story you will have to tell.