Ronald MacDonald

Forensic Analyser · Edinburgh, Scotland

active since 1991

Ronald MacDonald started out at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh in 1991, working with documents, checking materials, comparing handwriting, the kind of work that is fairly quiet most of the time.

After a few years he went freelance. He now gets sent charters, estate papers and copies of copies, usually with some question already attached to them. He prefers to set that question to one side and look at the document itself first.

Lately the work has leaned toward older Highland charters, pre-seventeen hundred — messy sets with different versions, missing bits and later edits. He keeps notes on anything that stands out: ink, margins, layout, small changes. He likes documents that have not been over-restored, since once they are too clean it is harder to tell what is original.