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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

1. Start with transcribed text: search_transcribed(keyword, offset=0) for initial hits
2. Check metadata too: search_metadata to find documents by title, person, or place
3. Paginate: Increase offset by 50 (50, 100, 150...) to discover more matches
4. 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
5. Narrow with more terms: adding a word tightens the search — pest smitta returns only documents containing both
6. 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