Trails
Ways through the Archives
A trail is a route through the records with a purpose: a story followed in order, a question put to you with the evidence laid out, or a legend set against the documents. Each has between eight and fifteen stops, a note on what to look for at each, and a question at the end. Follow one straight through, or start anywhere; every record on a trail shows you where you are.
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Follow the thread
The Kidd affair
From a syndicate of ministers to a rope at Wapping, in fourteen records.
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Follow the thread
One year: 1718
The pardon, the governor, the blockade, the wreck, the trial and the killing, in twelve records.
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Follow the thread
Follow the money
Who paid, who profited, who bore the loss and who wrote the shares down, in thirteen records.
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Follow the thread
How the age was ended
Pardon, law, navy and gallows: the four instruments in thirteen records.
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You be the jury
Was Kidd a pirate?
Ten pieces of evidence, each with the weight the record gives it. Then your verdict.
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Myth or record
Blackbeard: myth or record
The most famous pirate of the age, tested stop by stop against what actually survives.
The formats
- Follow the thread
- A guided reading, one record after another.
- You be the jury
- The stops are the evidence on one question. You give the verdict.
- Myth or record
- A story in circulation, set against what the record shows.
- Cold case
- A question the Archive cannot yet close, and what would close it.