With more than 10,000 pages, The Jonestown and Peoples Temple Digital Archive presents a few challenges in finding the exact information you might be looking for.
If you have a specific subject in mind, click on Search Tools, which appears in the upper right corner of every page of the site. This link opens to a page that provides two options to search the website. You might consider searching through both functions for the most possibilities.
- You can use the WordPress-generated search function which gives a great deal of information—but does not search through PDFs or photos on Flickr.
- Or you can use the Google Search, which will find PDFs, photos in Flickr albums, and even material in archived sites. The number of hits is limited to 100, however, unlike the WordPress search, which is unlimited.
If you are simply browsing, we suggest visiting one of the topics listed in the menu bar – everything from the roster of those who died in Jonestown, to reflections by former members, to digital audio recordings, and more. The links guide you to a range of resources.
The link to Primary Sources in the menu bar provides a documentary history of Peoples Temple and Jonestown. It is categorized by date, beginning with the Temple’s founding in Indianapolis and concluding (so far) with the dedication of memorial plaques in 2011. It also has a collection of histories and biographies written by Temple members in their own words.
The best way to learn about the site’s offerings, though, is to just sit with it for an hour and cruise through different pages, following the links wherever they take you. You will find much more than you ever imagined possible.