Most of the estate records and personal papers held by The National Library of Wales are catalogued in some detail in typescript schedules.

The estate records contain:

• title deeds
• rentals
• account books
• correspondence

Rentals may prove particularly useful in indicating a death or change of residence when a name disappears from a series of rentals.

There is a general card index to most of the typescript schedules of the collections in the South Reading Room. Probably the most useful for the family historian are the sections of the index devoted to wills, marriage settlements, inquisitions post mortem, and pedigrees.  However, no additions have been made to the card index since 1991 due to the introduction of the computerised catalogue ISYS:web.

The personal name index is a selective one, and in general does not include references to parties to deeds, unless the number of deeds relating to any one person or to members of any one family is considerable. It includes references to all fairly prominent people (e.g. those appearing in The (Oxford) Dictionary of National Biography and The Dictionary of Welsh Biography), and writers and recipients of letters are indexed when they appear to be of possible interest and when the content of the correspondence may seem important.

The topographical index is comprehensive and may often help to trace references to persons when their place of abode is known. Some of the subject cards may also help to trace references to persons of a known trade or profession. The index to the general collection of manuscripts (NLW MSS), partly published in the Handlist of Manuscripts in the National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1940 to 2003) may also be of use to genealogists.

Hundreds of the Library's typescript schedules are now searchable in our online catalogue.

To see the estate records and personal papers you should go to the South Reading Room.