KENNETH MACLEOD

Archival Researcher · Wellington, New Zealand

Kenneth is a New Zealand based archival researcher, now in his late sixties, with a long background in regional archives and family history collections. These days his work focuses mostly on Caribbean plantation records, estate papers and the compensation files that connect island properties back to British families.

He is careful, slow, and not especially interested in neat conclusions. Most of his work is about following names across broken records, copied documents and catalogues that do not quite match each other.

Projects tend to run for years rather than months. Folders are kept on paper. Notes are cross referenced rather than rewritten. Where the documents contradict each other, the contradiction is recorded as part of the entry rather than smoothed out.

Clients are usually families, regional collections and a small number of academic correspondents. Work is taken on at a pace that suits the records, which often means turning enquiries away when the file would not benefit from being rushed.

Kenneth Macleod — archival researcher in his Wellington study, working with plantation record copies. Portrait.

Working History

Independent Archival Researcher

Wellington, New Zealand · 1998 — present

Long-form archival research into Caribbean plantation records, estate papers and compensation files for private family-history clients, regional collections and a small number of academic correspondents.

Cataloguing, transcription, partial reconstruction of damaged record books and the preparation of working surname indices for use by other researchers.

Work is taken on at a pace that suits the records themselves rather than the calendar of any one project.

Senior Archivist

Hocken Collections, Dunedin, New Zealand · 1987 — 1998

Senior archivist with responsibility for family-history collections, settler papers and a long-running programme of cross-checking New Zealand settler genealogies against earlier Caribbean and Scottish estate records.

Oversaw the transfer of several private family collections into the Hocken holdings, including detailed catalogue work and condition reports.

Cataloguing Assistant

National Library of New Zealand, Wellington · 1979 — 1987

Cataloguing assistant in the manuscripts division, working primarily on settler family papers, merchant correspondence and a small number of plantation account fragments held within larger private collections.

Early experience in slow, patient catalogue work and in the habit of treating uncertain entries as information rather than as errors.

Kenneth Macleod — at his desk with working folders from the Trelawny and Compensation projects. Portrait.

Working Method

Records first. Stories second. Most projects begin with a surname or an estate name and then move outward into whatever documents are within reach, rather than starting with a family story and looking for documents to fit it.

Every spelling of a name is kept. Every contradiction between sources is recorded as information. Damaged entries are marked as illegible rather than reconstructed.

Work is paid for at flat per project rates with no hour accounting, on the understanding that the project will take as long as the records take. Drafts are shared by post or in person, on paper, never by email attachment.