Open files. Plain reports.

A small selection of cases, with names, families and locations removed. The reports the practice actually sends out are longer and written for the person who asked the question. These summaries are here to show how the work tends to land, not to comment on the people involved.

Ronald MacDonald laying out a pre-seventeen-hundred Highland charter for first review

Ref. RM/CW/2024/041

Crown charter, parchment, partial losses at lower margin

Highland, late seventeenth century · Argyll

Question: Are the witnesses on the second sheet contemporary with the body of the charter?

Finding: Witness list written in the same hand and ink as the body of the charter. A later annotation in the lower margin, in a hand from the seventeen forties at the earliest, is not part of the original instrument and should be treated as a separate document.

Notes: Annotation likely a family note for an inheritance dispute. Kept faithfully on the page but not legally tied to the original grant.

Ronald MacDonald going through a bundle of Scottish estate papers tied with cotton tape

Ref. RM/CW/2025/007

Estate papers, bundle of seventeen sheets bound with cotton tape

Edinburgh, second half of the eighteenth century · Midlothian

Question: Was the residual clause inserted into the will at a later date in a different hand?

Finding: Residual clause is on a leaf added after the original drafting, but the hand is consistent with the same writer working on a separate occasion. Ink chemistry suggests a gap of months to a year. No evidence of fraudulent substitution.

Notes: Common pattern of the period. Court understood the finding and proceeded.

Ronald MacDonald comparing two copies of the same document for differences in layout and wording

Ref. RM/CW/2023/118

Two transcribed copies of a charter, the original lost

Highland, copies dated nineteenth and twentieth century, claiming an earlier source · Inverness-shire

Question: Do the two copies derive from a single original or from separate sources?

Finding: Copies diverge in three substantive places. Layout differences and a recurring transcription error in copy B indicate at least one further intermediate copy that has not survived. Original cannot be reconstructed with confidence from these two alone.

Notes: Family declined to pursue the matter further. File closed at their request.

Ronald MacDonald marking the boundary of a later edit inserted into an older page

Ref. RM/CW/2022/064

Bond of manrent, paper, water damage along the right edge

Highland, early eighteenth century · Isle of Skye

Question: Are the signatures at the foot of the page contemporary?

Finding: Three of four signatures contemporary. The fourth is later by at least two decades, added in a different ink and possibly a different room, and is not part of the original bond.

Notes: Over-restoration in the nineteen sixties removed surface evidence that would have made this clearer earlier. Noted in the report.

Ronald MacDonald concentrating on a pre-seventeen-hundred Highland page with missing sections

Ref. RM/CW/2024/093

Tack, single sheet, folded for storage

Highland, mid seventeenth century · Perthshire

Question: Is the document genuine to the date stated on the page?

Finding: Paper, ink, hand and layout consistent with the stated period. Crease pattern consistent with long folded storage. No evidence of late edits. Document accepted by the receiving archive as authentic to date.

Notes: Plain finding. Short report. Client satisfied.

Anonymised. Reference numbers altered. Counties retained where they are part of the public archive context.