Diaries, Letters and Archives advanced search

Use Advanced Search to improve your results when searching the Diaries, Letters & Archives category.

Check out Related Pages for more information.


1. In the Search box at the top of the Trove homepage, enter a keyword for what you want to search. Ensure that the keyword is spelled correctly – Trove will search exactly what is entered. 

2. Select Diaries, Letters & Archives from the Advanced Search drop-down menu underneath the green magnifying glass button. Trove will generate filter options, followed by a list of search results containing your keyword.

3. Add or change keyword/s in the filter options to modify your search. You need to enter a keyword into at least one of these filters, and you can also use multiple filters:

  • Keyword - Search for the word/s anywhere
  • Title - Search for the word/s in the title only
  • Creator - Search for the name/s of the creator, including author, editor, illustrator, etc
  • Subject  - Search for the word/s in the subject headings

For each filter used, select from the drop-down menus:

  • All of these words - Get results containing every word
  • Any of these words - Get results containing one or more word
  • The phrase - Get results containing the words together as a phrase
  • Without these words - Do not get results containing one or more word

4. Enter keyword/s and/or select from the drop-down menus in the boxed filter options to further limit your search results and improve the accuracy of your search:

  • Australian content - Created in Australia, by an Australian or about Australia
  • Public tag - Tags added publicly to the Trove record
  • Format - Unpublished, published, or Government publication
  • Places - Australian state or country of publication
  • Access - If it is online, freely available or otherwise
  • Rights - If it is in copyright, or has other rights or licence statements
  • Year range - Date created
  • Language
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language - Includes Austlang codes
  • Organisations - Organisation where the item is held

5. When you have made your filter selections, select the green magnifying glass button underneath the boxed filter options on the right hand side. Trove will generate a filtered search results list.

6. You can further Refine your Results by selecting from the menu on the right hand side of the results list.