Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Tax rolls and parish registers survive far better than private letters. The figure is taken from UK National Archives, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a history fact?

Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Archives hold what clerks chose to keep

Tax rolls and parish registers survive far better than private letters Most surviving documents exist because an institution needed them: land records, court proceedings, customs accounts and parish registers. That means the written record over represents property owners and under represents the poor, women and colonised peoples. Historians read against that bias, using objects, oral testimony and court depositions to fill gaps. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

UK National Archives

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

History trivia General Knowledge trivia

More facts like this

Ice cores store a year by year climate recordTrapped air bubbles preserve samples of the atmosphere from past centuries Palaeography dates documents from their handwritingLetter shapes, abbreviations and ink changed in datable ways across centuries Oral history recorded voices missing from the papersInterviews from the 1940s onward captured lives that left no written trace Safety film replaced nitrate in the 1950sAcetate stock burned slowly, though it decayed into vinegar over time The Academy keeps its own film archiveIts collection holds thousands of titles for preservation and study The registry protects home movies and newsreelsNewsreels, adverts and family films sit alongside studio features

Tags: archives, sources, historiography

Archives hold what clerks chose to keep: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Tax rolls and parish registers survive far better than private letters. The figure is taken from UK National Archives, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a history fact?: Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.