Datasets:
license: mit
language:
- en
- es
- ru
- bg
- sv
- fi
tags:
- history
- jfk
- archives
- government
- text
- assassinations
pretty_name: JFK Files Text
size_categories:
- 10K<n<100K
task_categories:
- question-answering
- text-classification
- translation
- summarization
- text-generation
National Archives JFK Files Text Dataset
This dataset contains extracted text from the JFK assassination records released by the National Archives. The dataset preserves the original directory structure from archive.gov while providing significant performance and storage benefits for data analysis, AI applications, and large-scale processing.
Dataset Structure
The dataset is structured with the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
year |
The release year of the document (e.g., 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025) |
path |
The relative path to the file, mirroring the archives.gov structure (e.g., /releases/2022) |
filename |
The original filename (e.g., docid-32244106.md) |
record_number |
NARA record number |
nara_release_date |
NARA release date |
formerly_withheld |
NARA formerly withheld reason |
agency |
Agency |
document_date |
Document date |
document_type |
Document type |
file_number |
NARA file number |
to_name |
To name |
from_name |
From name |
title |
Title |
number_of_pages |
Document number of pages |
originator |
Originator |
record_series |
Record series |
review_date |
NARA review date |
comments |
Comments |
pages_released |
Pages released |
content |
The full text content of the document |
Path Organization
The path column preserves the original organizational structure:
- /releases - Files from the 2017 release
- /releases/additional - Additional files from the 2017 release
- /releases/2018 - Files from the 2018 release
- /releases/2021 - Files from the 2021 release
- /releases/2022 - Files from the 2022 release
- /releases/2023 - Files from the 2023 release
- /releases/2023/08 - Files from August 2023 subset
- /releases/2025/0318 - Files the 2025 release
Current Status
| Release Year | Status | Extraction Method | Files Extracted | Size | Total Files Listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | ✅ Complete | Apple Vision OCR | 2,566 | 8.12GB | 2,566 |
| 2023 | ✅ Complete | Apple Vision OCR | 2,693 | 6.20GB | 2,693 |
| 2022 | ✅ Complete | Apple Vision OCR | 13,199 | 14.15GB | 13,199 |
| 2021 | ✅ Complete | Apple Vision OCR | 1,484 | 1.36GB | 1,484 |
| 2017-2018 | ✅ Complete | Apple Vision OCR | 53,526 | 57.18GB | 53,547 |
Note: 34 files in the 2022 release and 5 files in the 2021 release tie to multiple record numbers listed in the .xlsx files which have more rows than unique file names (13,263 and 1,491 resptively). The 2017-2018 release xlsx file contains 6 bad links, but the 2017-2018 release website lists two files not included in the xlsx in the /additional path. The 2017-2018 release all contains 19 audio files (17 .wav, 2 .mp3). Transcripts of the two .mp3 files are included. The 17 .wav files are very poor quailty with lots of blank space (they may be added later).
Archive Statistics
- Total archive size: 87 GB
- Total files: 73,485
- Extracted text in markdown format available on GitHub
WebUI
A simple WebUI to query to the entire archive using the DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B LLM is available at https://jfkfiles.app.
Acknowledgments
- The National Archives for providing the JFK assassination records
- Contributors to the various open-source tools used in this project