| name | archive-search |
| description | How to query the Riksarkivet search tools — load BEFORE calling search_transcribed or search_metadata. Picks the right tool and builds queries with the fuzzy, wildcard, and old-Swedish-spelling tactics that AI transcription errors demand. Use when the user wants to search, find, or look up documents, people, places, or events in the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet) — including terms like trolldom, häxprocess, bouppteckning, or dombok.
|
Archive Search Guide
Search strategy, syntax, and best practices for the Riksarkivet search tools
(search_transcribed and search_metadata).
Tool Selection
| Research goal | Tool | Key params |
|---|
| Find text mentions in court records | search_transcribed | keyword |
| Find a person by name | search_metadata | name="Svensson" |
| Find documents from a place | search_metadata | place="Norrköping" |
| Find documents by title/type | search_metadata | keyword="bouppteckning" |
| Church records, estate inventories | search_metadata | keyword + place (not AI-transcribed) |
| Read full page content | browse_document | reference_code, pages |
Query Syntax — What Actually Works
The search API is a plain free-text engine, NOT a full Solr/Lucene endpoint.
Every syntax claim below is verified against the live API.
| Syntax | Example | Meaning |
|---|
| Single term | Stockholm | Find the word |
| Several terms | pest smitta | ALL terms required in the same document (implicit AND) |
| Wildcard | troll*, st?ckholm, *holm | * = many chars, ? = one char |
| Fuzzy | Stockholm~1 | Similar words (edit distance) |
NOT supported — never use:
AND / OR / NOT / | / parentheses. There is no boolean parser. The
words AND/OR/NOT are searched as literal text: and alone matches 1.6M
volumes, so pest AND smitta returns ~1.64M junk hits instead of the
33-document conjunction pest smitta. The server rejects such queries.- OR-logic has no syntax at all. Run one search per alternative term
instead: search
troll*, then häx*, and merge what you learn.
- Quoted phrases on transcribed text. They always return 0 — even a phrase
that occurs verbatim and adjacent on a page ("Venerisk smitta") yields no
hits. Never quote in
search_transcribed; use plain multi-term search
(kyrka stöld = both words anywhere in the volume). In search_metadata,
quotes work only for reference codes: "SE/RA/720660" lists an archive's
volumes, but quoted title phrases return 0.
- Proximity
"a b"~10. Not honored — returns 0 like any quoted phrase.
- Boosting (
term^4). Unverified; adds nothing. Leave it out.
Transcription Quality — Why Fuzzy Search Matters
All searchable text is AI-generated using HTR (Handwritten Text Recognition) and OCR models.
These transcriptions contain recognition errors: misread characters, merged or split words, and
garbled passages — especially in older, damaged, or poorly legible documents.
Always use fuzzy search (~) by default to compensate for transcription errors:
stockholm~1 finds "Stockholm", "Stockholn", "Stookholm" (common HTR misreads)trolldom~1 finds "trolldom", "trolldoin", "trolldorn"präst~1 finds "präst", "prast", "prest"
Without fuzzy search, you will miss many relevant results because the transcription
of the exact word you're looking for may contain errors.
Rule of thumb: Use ~1 (edit distance 1) for short words, ~2 for longer words or
very old/damaged documents. For stem variants use a wildcard instead: troll*.
Search Strategy for Maximum Discovery
- Start with transcribed text:
search_transcribed(keyword, offset=0) for initial hits
- Check metadata too:
search_metadata to find documents by title, person, or place
- Paginate: Increase offset by 50 (50, 100, 150...) to discover more matches
- Explore related terms — one search each (this replaces OR):
- Historical variants and spellings (e.g., "trolldom", then "häxa", then "trollkona")
- Synonyms and related concepts (e.g., "satan", then "djäfvul" for devil-related terms)
- Different word forms (e.g., "trolleri", then "trollkonst")
- Period-appropriate terminology and archaic spellings
- Narrow with more terms: adding a word tightens the search —
pest smitta
returns only documents containing both
- Drill down: Note reference codes and page numbers from results, then use
browse_document to examine interesting matches in full
Old Swedish Spelling Variants
Common spelling pairs to search for — always try both modern and archaic forms
(as separate searches, or covered by one wildcard/fuzzy term):
| Modern | Archaic / Variant | Covered by |
|---|
| präst | prest | pr?st or präst~1 |
| silver | silfver, silfv | sil*er or silf* |
| guld | gull | gul* |
| kyrka | kyrcka, kyrck | kyrk* or kyrck* |
| kvinna | qvinna, qwinna | q*inna or kvinna~1 |
| stöld | tiufnad, tjufnad | separate searches |
| häxa | hexa | h?xa |
| trolldom | trulldom | tr?lldom |
| djävul | djäfvul, diefvul | dj?f* + separate searches |
General letter drift: ä↔æ/e, ö↔ø/o, v↔f/fv/w, k↔ck/c — ? and ~1 absorb most of it.
Best Practices
- Wildcards for word variations:
troll* finds "trolldom", "trolleri", "trollkona"
- Fuzzy for AI transcription errors:
Stockholm~1 catches HTR/OCR misreads
- Multi-term to require co-occurrence:
kyrka stöld silver = volumes containing all three
- Year filtering: Use
year_min/year_max to narrow time periods
- Sorting:
sort="timeAsc" for earliest mentions, sort="timeDesc" for most recent
- Metadata search: Use dedicated
name and place parameters in search_metadata
for targeted person/place searches instead of putting everything in keyword
