Searching the South African National Archives (NAAIRS)

What NAAIRS is

NAAIRS (the National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System) lists the files held in the National Archives and the provincial repositories in Pretoria, Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth. Each entry gives a reference – the repository, the series and a volume number – that you need to order the file.

For family history the most useful entries are estate files: search for a surname and look for entries that read like 'Estate late …'.

The move to a new catalogue

The archives are moving the more than 8 million NAAIRS entries into a new catalogue built on a system called AtoM. While that happens, the new catalogue does not yet show every record.

Both systems have often been hard to reach. On 11 October 2026 the old NAAIRS search returned an error ("service unavailable") and the new catalogue did not respond at all. If you cannot get in, try again another day – and use the routes below in the meantime.

When the catalogue is down

• FamilySearch has copies of many of the most-used series, especially estate files – see our guide to death notices and estate files.
• Volunteer indexes, such as those on eGGSA, cover many Cape records.
• You can write to, or visit, the repository's reading room. Check that it is open before you travel: reading rooms sometimes close for power failures or maintenance.

Ordering a file

Note the full reference exactly as the catalogue gives it. In the reading room you request the file by that reference; repositories can also make copies for a fee, but replies can take a long time.