# Period Records

The data records of the secondary object type **Period** contain metadata for different time spans or points in time. 

Each **Period** record contains the following information.  The **Name** field reflects the time span or point in time. The **Date from** and **Date to** fields reflect the start and end dates of the period, respectively. The start and end dates are the same if it is a point in time. Under **Types,** the type of period is specified (e.g., time span, month, day). You may find additional comments by the Census editors under **Comments** regarding the current entry. 

You can access and search all of the Period records in the Census by clicking on the Period icon on the left-hand side bar:

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After clicking on the Period icon, you can search all period records using the free-text search field or using Advanced search.