Dorset History Centre

The Dorset History Centre is the archives service and local studies library for Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole. We house Dorset's local archives - from council records to personal collections. Our online catalogue gives access to over 150,000 catalogue entries, with more being added all the time.

We hold records for individual people, schools, businesses, the arts, court and prison records and electoral registers, amongst many others.

Anyone can visit the Dorset History Centre to carry out research, free of charge. We do not operate a booking system.

To protect our collections, we ask that visitors use pencils only and do not bring and food or drink in to the research rooms. You are welcome to bring a laptop to use in any of the research rooms. There are lockers available for your bags, including laptop cases, in the refreshment room.

There are three main research areas:

• The local studies library
• The family history search room 
• The archives search room

Dorset History Centre has worked with the family history website Ancestry.co.uk to digitise Dorset records. This means that many of our most important family history sources can now be viewed online. The website can be accessed without charge at the Dorset History Centre and in libraries across Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole.

World War I

The Dorset History Centre is making the diaries of a WW1 soldier freely available online.