John Worth - Primer

1. Begin with the main page of the Portal de Archivos Españoles (PARES).

2. Click on "Busqueda Avanzada" in the central menu.

3. Click on the drop-down menu under the second category heading, entitled "Filtrar por Archivo;" choose "Archivo General de Indias" and then wait for the form to re-load. Next choose one of the following two options, under steps 4 or 5.

4. If you want to perform a simple search using keywords, follow the steps below:

Enter keywords in the top box entitled "Buscar" with spaces in-between each keyword. HINTS: use only two or three keywords at most to get best results; for names, remove all prepositions such as "de" or "y" from the name, entering only the main first and last names separated by a space; and don't forget to try all possible spellings (modern and antiquated) for any given name or placename or item, since the index entries are often based on original spellings, which varied considerably from one document to the next, or from one time period to the next (i.e. Pensacola, Pansacola, Panzacola, etc.).

To limit the results to a specific date range, enter those dates (full years only) in the boxes below, entitled "Fecha desde:" and "hasta." If these boxes are not filled in, the results will include all dates with those keywords.

If you wish to search the entire index created for the AGI, regardless of whether or not a particular legajo (bundle) has been digitized for online viewing, then leave the first check-box highlighted, entitled "Todos los registros." If you wish to retrieve only those results for which document images can be seen online (this is only a fraction of the entire index), then click the second check-box, entitled "Registros digitalizados."

Once you are finished entering the above information, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Buscar" button, which will bring you to the search results page (proceed to step 6).

5. If you want to search for a particular legajo (bundle) for which you already have a citation (modern numbering system), follow the steps below:

Leave the keyword and date boxes blank, and go down to the category entitled "Filtro por signatura." Click on the button entitled "Seleccionar."

Search the list below and choose the particular section of the AGI that you wish to use; click the "+" symbol to the left of the name.

After the page reloads with an expanded list of legajo numbers, presuming the appropriate legajo is not in the first part of the list below, enter the number of the legajo you wish to consult in the box entitled "Contiene" and simply hit the enter key on your keyboard.

After the page reloads again with a highlighted link for the legajo you chose (presuming that legajo was entered correctly), either click on that link directly (if there are no subordinate "Numeros" or "Ramos" or "Libros"), or click on the "+" symbol below it to open a new list of subordinate divisions. You can follow this procedure (clicking on the "+" symbols) until you have the item you want to see, then click on the link for the item number you want to see.

Once you click on the link to the item you want to see, the next page that loads will be the original search page with all the appropriate information now filled in under the "Signatura" box. Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Buscar," which will bring you finally to the search results page (proceed to step 6).

6. If you want to search for a particular legajo (bundle) for which you only have an old-style citation number (for example, "54-2-2" instead of "Santo Domingo 124"), follow the steps below:

Enter the three-digit old-style citation in the uppermost keyword box (entitled "Buscar"), without any slashes or subsequent numbers (quotation marks not necessary around the citation), and click "Buscar" at the bottom of the page.

Follow steps 7-8 below, checking the detailed index page under the "Area de Notas" to confirm the "Signatura antigua" before proceeding (there may be several legajos which show the same old-style number, and the system was quite complex and occasionally confusing, so there is sometimes more art than science in finding antiquated citations).

7. Once the search results page opens up, you will see a list of all the different archive sections that contain results from your search (this may be multiple sections if you searched by keyword, but it will only be a single section if you searched by signatura). Click on the section you wish to see, which will open up another page with the individual results within that section.

8. Click on whichever of the results you wish to see, and a new page will open up with detailed index information about the item. If you see a bar entitled "Ver Imagenes," then you can click on that bar to open up the document imaging system itself. HINT: Even if you do not see this bar, if you see a bar entitled "Contiene," it means the legajo has been digitized, and you may click on this bar and it will open up a page listing the individual digitized documents which may be accessed individually through their own detailed information page.

9. The document imaging page includes many helpful aids, but the basics of navigation and viewing are as follows:

A medium-sized image of each page is shown on the left side of the screen, and on the right side of the screen are individual thumbnails of the adjacent pages in blocks of 8 pages. To review the entire document (some of which can be hundreds of pages), you can either click on the red "+" or "-" buttons which will tell you which group of pages you are viewing out of the total number of images, or you can click on the drop-down box entitled "Selecciona una imagen" and pick a particular image number to open. You should note that image numbers rarely correspond directly to folio numbers, which are normally rendered as "recto" (front) or "verso" (back), such as 34R or 34V, based either on the original handwritten numeration of the pages, or on penciled-in numbering that was added in more modern times for multi-section documents or legajos.

To see a full-sized image of each page, simply click on the medium-sized image noted above, and a new page will open with the full-sized image. Within this page, you can leaf through the adjacent pages (forward and back) using the "double-arrow" buttons above the image. You can also enhance the image for reading using the menu on the left of the image. Images are viewed in JPG format.

10. A few important quirks about the system:

Once you have the search results page listing the sections of the AGI within which you have results, when you click on a section name and proceed to the results, you cannot back up in the browser and click on a different section without backing all the way up to the search page and clicking "Buscar" again. If you try to open results within a different section of the AGI, the server will simply show you the same results from the first section you clicked (this may not be the case with all browsers, but it's definitely the case with Firefox). Also, sometimes when using the "Back" button on your browser, you may get a message regarding "POSTDATA" having expired from the browser cache; just click "OK" and you should be able to retrieve previous pages without problem.

If you wait too long (more than 10 or 20 minutes or so), the PARES system may send you an error message saying "Su sesion ha caducado" (your session has expired). If this happens, just click on the bar "Busqueda Avanzada" above, and you'll be able to renew your session by searching again.

If you have a particular citation for a document that you wish to see using the "Filtro por signatura" search box, and if you want to type it in directly (instead of going through the selection procedure outlined in step 5 above), make sure to use all capital letters, and make sure NOT to use any spaces between the section name, legajo, and subordinate designations. Commas are universally used to separate these designations from each other (no spaces), and there is also no space between abbreviated section titles with periods, and the number that follows them (i.e. "Ramo 5" would appear as "R.5" and not "R. 5"). In the case of two-word section names (such as Santo Domingo), use an underline space between the two words (i.e. "SANTO_DOMINGO").

1. Begin with the main page of the Nueva Guía General.

2. Click on the yellow link entitled "Fondos, Expedientes, y Documentos" on the left side; this will open a panel immediately below this link, in which there is a link at the top and a button entitled "Buscar" at the bottom (do NOT click the button at the bottom yet).

3. Click on the uppermost link immediately below the "Fondos, Expedientes, y Documentos" link, entitled "Archivo General de la Nación;" this will open a new panel on the right side, with descriptive text about the AGN.

4. Now, finally click on the "Buscar" button at the bottom of the left side panel; this will open a new window with a search engine.

5. This search window operates in a very particular manner; each keyword or set of keywords must first be entered in the small box on the lower right side of the main box (which you cannot enter text into directly).

6. After having entered keywords, then click on the drop-down box initially entitled "Alcance y contenido" in order to select what type of keyword you are searching for, including "Alcance y contenido" (contents), "Titulo" (title), and "Fechas" (date). HINTS: use only two or three keywords for each entry at most to get best results; for names, remove all prepositions such as "de" or "y" from the name, entering only the main first and last names separated by a space; and don't forget to try all possible spellings (modern and antiquated) for any given name or placename or item, since the index entries are often based on original spellings, which varied considerably from one document to the next, or from one time period to the next (i.e. Pensacola, Pansacola, Panzacola, etc.).

7. Next click on the button on the bottom left entitled "Agregar" in order to insert the keyword or keywords into the main search box.

8. After having entered one keyword or set of keywords, you can add additional keywords (including those of different types) using the same process outlined in steps 5-7 (don't forget to use the button "Agregar" on the bottom left in order to insert each keyword).

9. Once you are finished entering keywords, press the button entitled "Aceptar" (second from the bottom right) to submit your search for processing; this will close the separate search window and return you to the main page, where there should be a list of results in the left side panel, and blank space on the right panel. This list includes the Expediente number of the appropriate document, and usually the relevant section of the AGN where the expediente is found.

10. Click on any of the list of results on the left side in order to open a summary description of that document in the right side panel. This summary will include a brief summary of the contents of the document, and all relevant location and citation information.

11. Occasionally, a button will appear on the upper right side of the right-hand panel within the document description. This button, entitled "Ver imagen(es)," will open a new window with a document viewer allowing digital images of the document to be viewed using simple controls on the screen. These generally appear to be documents of short length which have been scanned and placed online. Images are viewed in Adobe Flash format.