JFK Assassination Archive
Now available for your desktop - a unparalleled personal research tool for studying Kennedy assassination records.
This page provides information about the JFK Assassination Archive, a personal and portable JFK assassination research tool. Plug this hard disk into your computer and access over 1 million pages of documents and other resources, using sophisticated and fast browsing and searching tools. Available for purchase right now.
About the JFK Assassination Archive
The JFK Assassination Archive is a research tool produced as a joint venture between the Assassination Archives and Research Center, History Matters, and the Mary Ferrell Foundation. It is a portable USB disk drive containing much of the MFF's archived primary source materials, along with a next-generation set of tools to access them which goes beyond that offered online. See the following Feature sections for all the details on this amazing research tool.
Features of the JFK Assassination Archive
UPDATE: With the relaunch of the MFF website in early 2015, all of the features pioneered on this disk are now available on the website. With the exception of unlimited searches and PDF access, which require Membership, they are freely available free to all users.
Each section below may be expanded for details and screenshots - click any "more" link.
Million-Page Document Archive and More
The disk contains the JFK portion of the MFF's document archive (with PDF copies of all documents), along with 15 chapter-length book excerpts, photo and audio archives, and interactive resources....
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Disk Contents include:
- Over 1 million pages of JFK records
- Chapter-length excerpts of 15 books
- Over 1000 photos and dozens of hours of audio
- Document walkthroughs, Mary Ferrell Database & Chronologies, Dealey Plaza Witness Database, CIA Cryptonym Database
- Introductory essays, help & tutorial pages, more
This is NOT a duplicate of the MFF website; not included from MFF website are non-JFK documents, Starting Points, Essay & Journal Archives, videos, and some other pages.
Enhanced Document Viewer
The viewer used to view scanned document pages is faster than the MFF website's, and features the ability to smoothly zoom in and out of a page. It also has a keyboard interface for fast page-flipping and keyboard access to other features....
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Enhanced document viewer:
- Smoothly zoom in and out of pages
- Snappier access to other pages in doc
- Optionally view the text the search engine sees
- PDF copy of every document
- All other standard features: search within doc, rotate page, printable page, etc.
Powerful New Search Engine
A completely new search engine offers many enhancements, including date-range filtering and other ways to constrain searches. The system also searches photo captions and other data. RIF Search is also improved....
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Written for this disk from the ground up, this powerful new search engine features:
- Search all disk contents, including documents, books, photos (captions), resources, more
- Results segregated by document type, links for more results
- Filter results by date-range, and by document collection and type
- Special RIF search allows search of any RIF field
- Click to view page hits, with search terms highlighted
Auto-Linking to References
Document references like WR222, 4WH17, CE 399, CD207, p.11, 104-10400-10010, and so on appear in many places, including document pages, Mary Ferrell Database entries, and elsewhere. These references are now links; just click to see the document....
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Auto-linking will save you tons of time chasing down references:
The JFK Collection is filled with references to other documents. A great many of these references follow a standardized format to refer to:
- Warren Commission Report pages (e.g., WR212)
- Warren Commission Hearings page (e.g., 5WH129)
- Warren Commission Exhibits (e.g., CE 399)
- Warren Commission Documents (e.g., CD 5)
- HSCA reports or appendices (e.g., AR330 or 7AH108)
- RIF-based records (e.g., 104-10400-10010)
Whereever these references appear in a proper format, whether in document pages, Mary Ferrell Database or Chronology entries, or other pages, they are automatically converted into links. Just click to go to the referenced page!
RIF Tools
More than 100,000 documents feature the National Archive's Resource Identification Forms (RIF)—these forms may be searched, and other special disk features make use of them....
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RIF-based documents feature special search tools and a "LIKE THIS" feature:
Click the RIF tab above a document page to see the RIF form at a glance in text format. Then use the right-side column to instantly find all documents with matching fields - Originator, From, To, Date, Subjects, and so on. The Search page also features special tools for searching RIF form data.
Enhanced Photo Archive
Photo galleries now can be perused via a convenient thumbnail slider. Also, full-resolution versions of each image are available right on the disk. Photo captions are searchable, so photos are included in search results...
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Photo archive features easy browsing, full-resolution images, search:
The Photo Archive features a thumbnail strip for easy browsing of images in each collection, with a medium-resolution display of the selected image. Full-resolution versions of images are a click away. Plus, the captions are searchable. Photos appear in search results with a thumbnail of the photo and a text snippet from the caption; click to view the photo in its gallery.
Enhanced Interactive Resources
The disk contains three document walkthroughs and four interactive projects. Two of these, the Mary Ferrell Database, and Stewart Galanor's Dealey Plaza Witness Database, have been significantly enhanced for this disk....
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Enhanced features of Mary Ferrell Database:
- Much improved browsing experience
- Many references are auto-linked to the documents
- As on MFF website, search using search sidebar
Enhanced features of Dealey Plaza Witness Database:
- View more than one witness location at a time
- Browse witness location dots and click to view witness
- Embedded search interface to look up names and words
- All other features from History Matters version

PDF Copies
Like the MFF website, the standard document viewing engine is a customized one. But every document on the disk has an accompanying PDF file, and these load quickly and can be read in the browser or any other PDF viewer....
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Fast access to a PDF copy of every document:
Click the PDF icon near the top-right of the document viewer to bring up a PDF copy of the document for viewing in your browser. These are the same PDF copies available at cost on the MFF website; on this disk, they load much much faster and are included at no extra charge.
Plus, it's fast and portable! Requires no software installation. Runs using your web browser, but requires no internet connection.
How Does This Product Relate to the MFF Website?
When originally developed in 2013 and launched that fall, the features touted above were not available on the MFF website. In fact, the JFK Assassination Archive was used as the test vehicle for the new technology development.
Now that these features are available on the website, the disk product is obviously less important. Consider a purchase for these reasons:
- Speed. In particular, PDF files which can take a long time to download are available at the speed of a click.
- Portability. Usable when there is no internet connection.
- No membership required. No need to log in. Lend it to a (good) friend who is not an MFF member.
- Be a part of history. The fight for these records spanned decades. Now you can literally hold them in the palm of your hand.
- Support the MFF. Outright donations are welcome; this is another way to give, and get something in return.
For More Information
If you have more questions not answered on this page, please email History Matters, the creator of this disk.
FAQ Updates
This section will feature any updates to the disk's FAQ page.