Free or Paid: How Do I Tell?

What to check first in this record

Tell free from paid by checking the holder's own pages, not a search result snippet. Official archives state what is free to view, what is free to download, and what carries a copy or research charge, and those terms differ by series.

Records disagree more often than stories do, and that is useful: a disagreement points to a transfer, a renumbering, or a variant spelling, each of which can be tested. If the clue you hold is a story, break it into testable pieces before you search. A story searched as a whole can only be confirmed or denied, never tested. A person who served in two periods, two units, or two services will look like two people until the threads are joined by dates and numbers.

Working through it in order

Do not start with the record that interests you most. Start with the record that anchors the timeline, and let interest follow the anchor. Keep your notes in the same order as the steps, so that a later reader, including yourself in six months, can retrace the work. Keep the timeline open beside you as you work, and add to it as you go, rather than reconstructing it at the end from memory.

1. Start from the official holder catalogue or site for the record you need.
2. Note whether what is free is an index, a transcription, or a digitised copy.
3. Check a transcription against the digitised copy or the catalogue entry before relying on it.
4. Plan paid steps, such as copy orders, only after the free finding aids have fixed the reference.

How do you read what you find?

A date written in one format on one sheet and another format on the next is the same date wearing two formats. Convert carefully, and keep the original. Read appendices, maps and marginal notes as part of the entry, not as extras. An appendix can settle a place name, a date, or a name that the daily text leaves vague. If you cannot read a word, mark it unread rather than guessing it. A guessed word, once written into a timeline, is very hard to dislodge.

Where this kind of research usually stalls

The most common reason a search fails is a date filter that is too tight. Widen the range by a year on each side before you conclude anything is missing. Note dead ends in the timeline itself, with dates. A timeline that shows where the trail went cold is more honest, and more useful, than one that jumps the gap. If every search returns the same wrong person, stop searching and re-examine the filters. Repeating a search with the same filters will repeat the same result.

The next record in the chain

Return to the pillar guide when you lose the thread. Pillars exist to restore the shape of a section when detail has obscured it. Work the chain one link at a time. A timeline built link by link can be checked; a timeline built by jumping to the most interesting record cannot.

If a related guide looks irrelevant, read its first paragraph before dismissing it. Irrelevance is often a misjudged title, not a misplaced guide. A timeline that can be retraced, reference by reference, is the goal. Everything else, story included, is secondary to that.