About

Essex Record Office welcomes ancestral tourists, conference centre clients and external users of our specialist professional and technical facilities.

Essex Record Office is home to Essex County Council's county-wide public archive service, responsible for preserving and making available the documentary heritage of Essex. Many of our visitors and users are from outside the county. Use of the public searchroom on the first floor is without formality but visitors must obtain a County Archive Research Network reader's ticket from the Public Venue Team first. The Record Office also operates access points at Saffron Walden Library and Harlow Museum.

Our archival holdings of unique parish records, nonconformist records, business records, school and local government records, wills, magistrates' court records, hospital records, records of charities and family and estate records make ERO a one stop shop for research into local history, house history and family history in Essex. Co-located with us are the Essex Society for Family History http://www.esfh.org.uk, the Essex Registration Service Certificate Centre and the Victoria County History of Essex Trust http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/counties/essex

The Essex Record Office is attractively situated between the River Chelmer and the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation and conveniently placed for town centre shopping, eating places, scenic footpaths and cycle routes.

The searchroom welcomes about 15,000 personal visitors each year, the repository block holds about 7 miles of records and our Seax web site http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk, the portal for the Essex Ancestors pay to browse service, receives several million hits per month.

Essex Record Office organises an active annual programme of events, advertised through our social media and printed events guide.

Also on the premises is the Essex Record Office Conference Centre, Essex County Council's premier conference venue. This consists of a 140 seat lecture theatre and eight other flexible use rooms all equipped with presentation technology and available for hire to internal and external clients.

Please note the building is equipped with public WiFi. Contact the Public Venue Team Manager on arrival for public WiFi log-on procedures.

Sharing the building with Essex Record Office is Essex County Council's Registration Service Certificate Centre, whose registers of births, marriages and deaths and indexes for Essex complement the holdings of Essex Record Office and combine with them to offer Essex County Council's Single Repository for historical records and documentary heritage. The Certificate Centre offers a mainly postal service (POA) but also receives personal visitors by appointment. for re-registrations. It also continues to work in conjunction with the eight registration offices throughout Essex in the operation of a Single Registration District.

Please note, there are restrictions on the consumption of food and drink in certain areas.

Banquets and Parties

The ERO Conference Centre is Chelmsford's premier conference venue, 140 seat lecture theatre, 8 other flexible rooms or areas, free WiFi and modern presentation equipment. Light refreshment facilities.