Piecing together the past.

Displays and exhibitions explore the rich collections to tell the stories of Manchester’s people and communities. You’ll find a full-range of local and family history resources, from books, maps, original materials and sound archives to self-service digitised items and online resources like ancestry.com and findmypast.com.

Archives+ brings history to life using interactive exhibits including sound and vision kiosks. Its focus is on telling stories and helping us to identify with our past. Our history isn’t just about the great and the good, it’s about personal testimony from ordinary people: a child in the cotton mill, the navvy, the land girl.