Archive Collections

Welcome to the West Glamorgan Archive Service online catalogue. It contains over 230,000 entries describing items in our collections, and includes archive documents, recordings in our screen and sound archive, and books and articles in our searchroom library.

Search the catalogue

Before you begin, here are some links to help you find out how the catalogue works and how to get the most out of searching it:

• Using the online catalogue
• Terms used in the online catalogue
• FAQs

Other resources on our website

• Want to find a farm or village on an old map? Try our Index of Placenames
• Looking to see what parish registers are available? Here is a list of what we hold
• Did your ancestor die in the First World War? We have made a searchable index to the war memorials we hold.

External resources

• Was your ancestor a Swansea mariner? Try the Swansea Mariners website. You can search for Swansea registered ships and the people who sailed them. We hold the original records.
• You can find all sorts of things in old newspapers. Try Welsh Newspapers Online for all the Welsh papers up to 1919.

Found what you wanted? Find out where you can see it:

• Archives, books and articles at West Glamorgan Archives
• Neath Antiquarian Society archive collections held in Neath
• Recordings and films in the Screen and Sound Archive

Want to know more?

• Find out more about getting copies of documents
• We can undertake research for you for a fee. Find out more.
• You can contact us with a query

Here are some leaflets and source lists that we have put together to explain some of the popular record types and help you with your research:

Poor Law Union Records [293KB]
Land Tax [812KB]
A map of ancient parishes in West Glamorgan [603KB]
Tithe Maps [450KB]
Reading old documents [709KB]
Electoral rolls [835KB]
Parish registers and chapel records [2MB]
Schools and their records [2MB]
Administrative area key sheets [9MB]
Coroners' records [5MB]
Gazetteer of localities in the West Glamorgan area [5MB]
A guide to Second World War online resources [914KB]