The advanced search gives you the possibility to specify your search and to search specific archives. After entering the search term, you can activate the "Exact spelling" option, which ensures a word-specific search. If this is not selected and you are looking for "King", for example, hits in word variations such as Kings or Kingsmen are also displayed.

The field "with all words"

A search result must contain all terms entered in this field.

Example: The entry of "weimar goethe" finds all stock descriptions that contain the terms "Weimar" and "Goethe", but none that do not contain one of these terms.

The field "with the group of words"

Here you can enter a group of words to be found, for example a part of a sentence or a whole sentence, which must be included in this word sequence.

Example: The entry "Attached are tax office files" finds all results with this group of words, but not, for example, "Attached were tax office files" and no entries that only contain "files" or "tax offices".

The field "with any of the words"

A search result must contain at least one of the words entered. This field automatically accepts entries from the search field at the top right of each page.

Example: The entry "Weimar Goethe" finds all stock descriptions that contain "Weimar" or "Goethe" or both terms.

The field "without the words"

To narrow down a found set further, you can enter one or more words here that a search result must not contain. This restriction requires an entry in one of the three fields already described.

Example: The entry "Weimar Goethe "in the field "with all words" and "Jena" in the field "without the words" finds all stock descriptions which contain "Weimar" and "Goethe", but only those which do not contain the word "Jena".

The "with running time of" and "with running time to" fields

To find only data records whose term is within a certain period of time, enter year dates here.

Example: The entry of "Goethe" in the field "with any of the words", as well as the entry of "1800" in the field "with running time from" and "1830" in the field "with running time to" finds all entries that contain "Goethe" and have a term in the range from 1800 to 1830.

The "Inventory signature" field

You can use this field to search for a specific inventory by entering an inventory signature. Perhaps the inventory signature was quoted in publications or you have already noted it down during previous visits to the archive and would now like to research the content of the inventory. By clicking on the inventory name in the hit list, you can go directly to the start page of the inventory and - if the inventory already has an online findbook - from there to the view of the online findbook. In the online findbook it is also possible to search specifically for an individual archive signature.

Example: After entering the inventory signature 6-82-3001, the Thuringian Ministry of Economics is found in the Main State Archive in Weimar.

The field "Limit search to these archives"

In this field you can limit your search to selected archives. Select an archive by clicking on it. To select several archives, hold down the "Ctrl" key while clicking. To deselect an archive, also press and hold this key. The archive types written in red are only used for visual structuring and are not included in the search.

The "Display" field

Here you can set how many results should be displayed per page. This setting is also "remembered" during your current session.

The full-text search option is available in the online findbook view. The search is performed by entering the search term in the text input field, which is located in the top right-hand corner, just as on the main page, and then pressing the enter key or clicking on "Search". The search is always limited to the just opened online findbook and searches its systematics and the archive material information contained therein. Data other than these is not recorded by the search. Hits under the archives or systems in which hits have been found are underlined in red. You can transfer these to the watch list.

It is possible to search for several search terms such as "Goethe Weimar" by separating them with spaces, but there is no support for operators such as "AND", "OR", "NOT" or parentheses.

For orders of individual files for inspection in the reading room of an archive, please refer to the notes on ordering files.

In the opened inventory overview of an archive, you can search through all inventories of an individual record group. After clicking on a search slot opens in which you can enter your search term. After clicking on "Search" you will see the list of results.

If a search contains more results than you have set under "Display", the list of results is divided into several pages. You can navigate to the other pages of the results list using the page navigation at the end of the results list.

Please note that the results are sorted by relevance. It is therefore possible that further results hits for an archive can be found on later pages. To limit the search to a specific archive, you can use the advanced search or click on the icon in the result list.

The name of the hit and an excerpt of the text are displayed in the result list. If the hit is a systematic or a distortion unit, click on the text to open the corresponding online findbook. In the result list, the individual levels are displayed until the hit. Search terms are highlighted in color.

In addition, a path is displayed that depicts the affiliation of a inventory to an archive. The individual components of this path are clickable and lead to the respective element.