Families describe what the work involved and what it produced.

My father passed away in May and the paperwork was overwhelming. There were documents in three languages, from different decades, some of which we had never seen before. The inventory session gave us a list we could actually use — something to hand to the solicitor and to the land office. It took one afternoon and the archivist was very patient when we needed to stop for a while. I appreciated that she wrote everything down without telling us what any of it meant; that was not what we needed from her.

June 2025 · Estate Document Inventory Session

We engaged Legacine for the full archiving project after my grandmother's estate was settled. Four generations of photographs and correspondence, some going back to the 1940s. The work took the six weeks described and the result is something the whole family can use — my aunts in Penang and my brother in Johor each have a copy. The finding aid is genuinely readable; I tested it with my teenage daughter and she could navigate it. One item arrived back with a small crease that was not there before; it was noted in the condition report and acknowledged, which I respected.

May 2025 · Family Records Archiving Project

We have been on the stewardship arrangement since 2023 and it suits our family well. New documents arrive each year — insurance renewals, company documents, correspondence — and the archivist adds them to the index on each visit. The annual report is a short, clear summary of what came in and what condition everything is in. It is the kind of thing I would not have thought to do myself but which I am very glad exists.

July 2025 · Household Records Stewardship

I was unsure at first whether an inventory session was worth doing before we had spoken to a solicitor. The archivist was clear that these were separate things and that the inventory would actually help the solicitor because he would know what documents existed before starting. That turned out to be correct. The list we produced in the afternoon session became the starting point for the estate administration. The referral notes section was particularly useful — it told us which questions to bring to whom.

June 2025 · Estate Document Inventory Session

We started with the inventory and then commissioned the full archiving project a few months later. Having both done in sequence worked well because the inventory gave us a complete picture of what needed to be archived before any preservation work began. The six-week timeline was accurate; we received the boxes and the drives on the thirty-eighth day. There was one document type — a category of old company forms — that the archivist was not familiar with and said so directly, which I found honest rather than concerning.

April–May 2025 · Inventory Session then Archiving Project

My mother has old photographs that she was worried about and some property documents going back forty years. The archiving team handled everything carefully and the sleeved originals came back in noticeably better condition than when they went. The encrypted drive for each of my brothers was a thoughtful arrangement — it avoids the situation where one sibling holds all copies. The finding aid uses plain language, which is important when the family spans different levels of English.

March 2025 · Family Records Archiving Project