Almost every historian turns to archival sources. The success of his search largely depends on how much he is oriented in the archive's funds, knows their composition and content. This is also largely due to the researchers ' familiarity with the history of the archive, the principles of funding and systematization of its documents, and the features of the scientific reference apparatus. Historians, ethnographers, philologists, art historians, specialists in other fields of science and practice, students, and local historians are constantly engaged in the Central State Archive of Ancient Acts (TSGADA). Knowledge of the main stages in the formation of the archive, its collections, scientific reference apparatus-these are the guiding threads that can help researchers in the search for the necessary information in a huge mass of archival documents. In July 1977, TSGADA turned 125 years old1 . It was formed from five independent pre-revolutionary archives, which after the Great October Socialist Revolution were united into a single repository of documents of the feudal era. The TSGADA is based on the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Justice (MAMJ), which was created in 1852 to store materials from three archives that were attached to the Moscow departments of the Senate: the State Discharge Archive, the State Archive of Former Patrimonial Affairs, and the State Moscow Archive of Old Affairs .2 The MAMU kept documents of the oldest orders - Discharge, Printing, Siberian, Local, Little Russian, Preobrazhensky, documents of Patrimonial, Justice, Chamber, Audit colleges, a number of offices, chancelleries, as well as other central institutions of the XVIII century, liquidated in connection with the provincial reform of 1775. During the 19th century, the archive was supplemented with materials from the St. Petersburg and Moscow departments of the Senate, Lithuanian Metrica, as well as local institutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. (in connection with the judicial reform ... Читать далее