Hawaii digitizes 64 volumes of state records, publishes online with free public search tool

Hawaii’s State Archive on Saturday announced it had completed digitizing 64 volumes of state records, such as genealogy, land and court records, and published the volumes online through a website that’s free for the public to use.

The state kicked off its work on the digital archives in 2020, and the now online volumes catalog records from the early-1800s through the late 1990s. It also offers a searchable index to a portion of the Hawaii State Archives’ vast collection of paper records, helping users identify where documents they want to find may be located.

The state’s archivist said the new website is meant to serve as a starting point — not a one-stop shop — for archival research. Researchers must work with archivists to locate original materials, such as court documents or newspaper articles, which are housed in the archives’ physical collections.

“This is an important step forward as the public can now, from the comfort of their home and at any time of day, start their search and see whether or not we even have the information they want. If we do, then they can have the proper citations ready for faster service when an archivist is able to help them,” Hawaii State Archivist Adam Jansen said in a news release. “Previously, people would have to come in person to search through the indexes. This widens access, particularly for people doing research projects from the neighbor islands or out-of-state. Public access is important to us as we are a state resource.”