According to the above-mentioned decree of 1852, old record books dating back to ancient times and up to 1799 were to be transferred from various offices in Vilnius, Minsk, Grodno, and Kaunas governorates (guberniyas) to the Vilnius Central Archives of the Old Record Books. Essentially, the Archives were completed as late as 1862 – at that time, the old record books kept there totalled 17,388. They were mainly documents produced by various institutions of GDL. In fact, the accumulation of documents continued: in 1887, documents of the liquidated Lublin Old Record Books Archives were transferred to the Vilnius Archives; documents of the cancelled Vitebsk Central Archives of the Old Record Books were also transferred to the Vilnius Archives in 1903.
