Will I find what I am looking for at NVAHCA?
Every archival question seems to be answered by, “Well, it depends…” and that’s true here. It depends on what one are looking for. If one is looking for Veterans health or pension records or military records, no. Those are kept at National Archives.
Otherwise, it depends on where one is in the research process. For Federal records, archives are not usually the place to start one’s research, it’s usually somewhere around the middle of the process. The triangles show best why this is. Federal archives are organized opposite of the way people are taught to research. Summarized, topical research is when one is seeking the answer to a question. Archival research is when one knows the answer and now has to prove it. Our job as archivists is to help researchers navigate that space between the two.
