Glossary for Discovery

Term	Definition
Archive (held by)	This is the organisation which holds the records – the may be known variously as record offices or repositories.
Catalogue reference	see Document reference
Department code	The highest level of The National Archives’ catalogue hierarchy, determined by the government department which held the records prior to The National Archives. Examples include Ministry of Health, War Office and Treasury.
Division	An administrative section of a department, one level down.
Item	Part of a ‘piece’; an item can be a page, a folder or a bundle of papers. Note that only a minority of records have been described to this level and therefore not all documents have an item number.
Piece	Usually the level at which a reference becomes an orderable or viewable unit. A piece can be a folder, file, volume or box of documents.
Record creator	The institution or person that originally created a record (often not the same as the institution or person that currently holds the record). For example, the Brookwood Cemetery burial registers were created by the London Necropolis Company and are held in the Surrey History Centre.
Document reference	Every document held at The National Archives and other archives and institutions has a unique code, known as a document reference. Document references at The National Archives are usually in three parts. For example WO 95/234 – WO is the department, 95 is the series and 234 is the piece. References used by other archives may look different but follow a similar pattern, such as COL/CN/05/018 or LINCOLN PRISON 1.
Series	The main grouping of records with a common function or subject. Archive documents maintained as a unit because they result from the same activity or filing process or have a particular form; or because of some other relationship arising from their creation, accumulation or use.
Subject	Lists the subjects that the records have been tagged by, for example, railway, education, battles and conflicts.
Sub-series	A smaller grouping of records with a common function or subject.
Sub sub-series	A smaller grouping of records with a common function or subject.

Term

Definition

Archive (held by)

This is the organisation which holds the records – the may be known variously as record offices or repositories.

Catalogue reference

see Document reference

Department code

The highest level of The National Archives’ catalogue hierarchy, determined by the government department which held the records prior to The National Archives. Examples include Ministry of Health, War Office and Treasury.

Division

An administrative section of a department, one level down.

Item

Part of a ‘piece’; an item can be a page, a folder or a bundle of papers. Note that only a minority of records have been described to this level and therefore not all documents have an item number.

Piece

Usually the level at which a reference becomes an orderable or viewable unit. A piece can be a folder, file, volume or box of documents.

Record creator

The institution or person that originally created a record (often not the same as the institution or person that currently holds the record). For example, the Brookwood Cemetery burial registers were created by the London Necropolis Company and are held in the Surrey History Centre.

Document reference

Every document held at The National Archives and other archives and institutions has a unique code, known as a document reference. Document references at The National Archives are usually in three parts. For example WO 95/234 – WO is the department, 95 is the series and 234 is the piece. References used by other archives may look different but follow a similar pattern, such as COL/CN/05/018 or LINCOLN PRISON 1.

Series

The main grouping of records with a common function or subject. Archive documents maintained as a unit because they result from the same activity or filing process or have a particular form; or because of some other relationship arising from their creation, accumulation or use.

Subject

Lists the subjects that the records have been tagged by, for example, railway, education, battles and conflicts.

Sub-series

A smaller grouping of records with a common function or subject.

Sub sub-series

A smaller grouping of records with a common function or subject.

Also in Discovery help