​​​A good deal of research can be conducted on the Oregon State Archives website without traveling to Salem. Resources fall into two categories: legal and genealogical/general.

Help for research into legislative intent is available for legislative sessions from 1991 to the present. These include legislative bill tracings and text and audio of committee minutes and logs​. The Oregon Legislative Records Guide includes an inventory of legislative records held by the Archives. Minutes are sparse before the 1940s and not consistently maintained until the 1960s. The Oregon Legislators and Staff Guide ​ lists legislators and staff from 1841 to the present.

Other resources are maintained on the Oregon State Legislature's website. Exhibits (e.g., written testimony) submitted to legislative committees are not available online, but are accessible in hard copy at the Archives. Many exhibits from 1947 to 1995 are available on microfilm held by ​law libraries such as the University of Oregon and Multnomah County.

The Oregon Historical County Records Guide and topical research aids on the Archival Records page​ provide inventories of records. These can be useful for finding records at the Archives and in the counties that may include references to individual people. For example, if a researcher knows a person died in Coos County in 1893, it may be useful to locate probate records for that period.

You can look for names of individuals in the Oregon Historical Records Index. This database includes over 570,000 entries from county and state records. The index represents only a fraction of the entries from county records held by the Archives.

Research into Governor's Records Guides​ and historical photographs can also be conducted online.

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