Guide conventions

Collection titles
Collection titles are given in bold, and further details where appropriate are given underneath.

Collection references
The collection reference is the unique alpha-numeric reference allocated to a particular set of documents. All YAS collection references are prefixed DD, MD or MS. In this guide the reference for the whole collection is given. Individual items within catalogued collections will have additional section or item numbers which you will need to quote when ordering documents in the archive searchroom e.g. MD335/1/12/5.

Unless a collection contains only one or several items you will need to obtain more information on collection contents from staff or view the collection catalogue yourself before viewing items in the searchroom or ordering copies. Please contact the archives on 0113 245 6362 or email to find out if more information is available on particular collections. When enquiring about collections please quote the Collection Reference.

Dates
Where possible the date range of material contained in each collection is given. These are covering dates i.e. in a series of minutes books 1890-1903 there may not be minutes for every year e.g. we may only hold a minute book for 1890-1895 and one for 1900-1903.

Where a document is undated the abbreviation “n.d.” (no date) is used.

Where exact dates are not know a century is given.

Estimated dates are given in square brackets.

The abbreviation “c.” for circa is used to denote approximate dates.

In the case of photocopies, photostats and photographs of documents the dates of the original document which has been copied are given in round brackets. For handwritten or typescript copies the dates of the copies and the original document have both been given where possible.

Additional information
Square brackets are also used where additional information has been added or clarification is
needed e.g. Deanhead [parish of Huddersfield].

Published material
Where transcriptions of documents have been published by the YAS this is noted. “YAJ” is the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, “WCR” is Wakefield Court Rolls publishing section and “YRS” stands for Yorkshire Record Series.

Note
The following guide is a consolidation of the two printed guides and lists of more recent accessions. Please excuse any formatting or stylistic inconsistencies or typographical errors which may have occurred in the process of compiling this guide. We hope to be able to address any such problems in due course.