Nazi gold to UFOs - National Archives frees information

The first version of William the Conqueror's Doomsday Book was completed in 1086 - the first-ever survey of the English people and their way of life.

It is the oldest record held at the National Archives (NA) today and one of millions of historic documents stored there.

There are 200km of shelves at the NA, and every weekend the building fills with people looking to unearth details of events and people such as Jack the Ripper, John Lennon and the most notorious female murderers of the 20th century.

Dr Chris Owens, head of e-access development services, explains: "We are a government department, reporting to the Lord Chancellor. We preserve and provide public access to the historic records of British government - we have a thousand years of material, right up to the present day. You can read MI5 records or information on the Battle of Trafalgar."

Owens said as the internet grew, the NA started to look at publishing its records online.

"More than eight million records are available for viewing here at our building in Kew and some of them are available online. Our online services have grown significantly in the past couple of years," he said.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force on 1 January this year. Under the law, public sector organisations including central government, local councils, emergency services and health authorities are obliged to make most of their information available within 20 working days of receiving a request.

This meant the NA needed to have systems that could handle requests for information from the public.

Last year Owens started considering how to tackle this: "That meant change," he said. "It meant we had to answer queries in the right way. That's when we started to look out for an enquiry handling system."

His team opted for software that could allocate requests to several employees and track the progress of an enquiry. The NA paid £150,000 for a 40-seat licence for Hornbill's SupportWorks.

"It needed to have a nice mixture of handling queries, a filtering option [and] the ability to track progress of a request. This would allow us to change the process and have the ability to attach files as we went on," he said.

"When a request comes in, it is allocated to someone who can attach electronic documents, make notes and choose to send the information back digitally or on paper."

He added: "We were on a very tight timescale - we finished testing in October or November. We had the system in one or two weeks later. We didn't go live until a week before January."

But after the rush to prepare, and although it has seen more requests than any other government department, the NA received fewer enquires than expected.

"We get enquiries on Nazi gold, and on UFOs but most of the information we're asked for is about family history," he said.

"Some of the enquirers may have family roots elsewhere but all they know is that a previous generation settled here and changed their name when they took British citizenship. Their descendants may not know where the family comes from and they'd like to know."