Looking for a person? Sometimes Pathe records do not include Christian names. If you cannot find who you are looking for by searching with a person's full name, try their surname and what they might have been filmed doing - for example: Bedser cricket. Sometimes women are referred to by their husband's name - for example: Mrs Arthur Hamilton the cross channel swimmer. Looking for a place? Try the simplest form of the name - for example: Southend rather than Southend-on-Sea. Not all locations are known to us, try the county and a qualifying word - for example: Essex seaside. Let us know if you recognise a place that we haven't!

Want a general overview?

Try searching by keywords. These will produce lots of search results and tend to be large categories such as fashion, sport, politics, war, crafts, entertainments, etc. You can break your search down by selecting a year to make results more manageable.

Looking for something very specific?

Search the description box. You can enter multiple words to try and pinpoint your search - for example: egg spoon race Blackpool. If you are searching for very specific shots the acronyms C/U (close up), M/S (mid shot), and L/S (long shot) might prove useful. VS (various shots) and GV (general views) are also commonly used in the text descriptions.

Too many search results?

Refine your search by asking to omit certain results. For example if you want footage of Liverpool try: Liverpool not football.

Too few search results?

Try similar search words - if you searched for amusement parks and didn't find much - try funfairs. Try using the qualifier 'or' - for example: gymnastics or acrobatics. The asterisk key can be used as a "wild card". If you search for fog* your results will include records containing the words fog, foggy, foggiest etc...
It is best to avoid using punctuation in search requests (Lords will find Lord's) but sometimes it is worth trying combinations of spellings such as roller-coaster, rollercoaster and roller coaster

Weird and Wonderful

If you want weird, bizarre, odd, strange or wacky footage - try using quirky in the keywords search coupled with a qualifier for example: quirky inventions. To refine your search even further, add another: quirky transport inventions.

Our top tip is: experiment and have fun!