Across the world there are steps to make available the personal histories of prominent people. And with 20 metres of records to digitise, catalogue and index the National Library of New Zealand has completed perhaps one of the more amazing personal collections. Now it could be argued that we as individuals who don't hold public office have little or nothing to tell the world, let alone leave to anyone - I would argue, we have as many interesting tales to tell as the next person.

Letters that we write to others, and receive in return, photographs we take and have taken of us - every one tells a story of a certain point in time...our time and our lives. Of course the more we do, the more interesting our legacy can be, but that doesn't mean to say "normal" people don't have interesting stories to tell and leave behind. After all we all have our own unique perspective on the world, and sometimes our interpretation of events can be better than the event itself.

So, do you keep everything? Well that's up to you and what you do want your descendants to find about the "real you" doesn't it.

Introduction - McLean | Manuscripts & Pictorial | National Library of New Zealand

The Papers of Sir Donald McLean, 1820-1877

Donald McLean (1820-1877) was arguably the most influential figure in mid-19th century New Zealand history. He was a dominant figure in relations between Māori and the Government during this tumultuous period. More about Donald McLean.

His papers comprise almost 20 shelf metres and most of them are nowavailable in digital form - the largest such archives digitisationproject in New Zealand to date. Included are series of letters,diaries, notebooks, letterbooks and telegrams. A feature are the over3000 letters by Maori from throughout the whole of New Zealand - thelargest single series of such correspondence that survives from thenineteenth century.