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[Daniel Paul Cotts]

Nick,
Welcome to the forum. I believe the records from the British Colonial Period are now stored in NZ. Tigar has researched some; but I think were limited by time. If you have much time and patience and could accept that your research may be for naught, you might ask Marty for some suggestions.

[Nicholas Heath]

what kind of stuff were Tighar researching?

it sounds like it could be a daunting task

i might message Marty for more specifics and see if I can find the time to see if there is anything to do.

thanks for the welcome btw

Nick

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

I believe the records from the British Colonial Period are now stored in NZ. Tigar has researched some; but I think were limited by time.

Yes, the WPHC Archives are in Auckland now.  Wellington is at the other end of North Island.

If you have much time and patience and could accept that your research may be for naught, you might ask Marty for some suggestions.

My heavens!  You make it sound as though he needs time and patience to ask for suggestions.   

All of my notes about what we did and did not find are in the article on the WPHC Archives.

I did run out of time.  It's not clear to me whether there are more volumes of Annual Outbound Correspondence beyond the ones that I read in their entirety.  It is a haystack that might be worth searching, if it exists.  I had to allow 24 hours between the time I asked for something and the time I got it; I also had to imagine in advance, without knowing exactly what was coming, whether I could read it in a day.  I didn't want to impose on the staff by having too much material backed up on a cart for me.

[Nicholas Heath]

wow, thats A LOT of information collated there, and to think that there is much more.

Be careful.  There may be some more information available in the extant files.  I can't promise anyone that there really is a needle in the remainder of the haystack.  I did what I could with the time and money available in 2003.  My theory was that perhaps a "brute force" approach would turn something up--reading every page of the finding aids and every entry in every index that I could retrieve from the stacks.  I took notes on things I found interesting, partly to keep my mind from turning to mush, but I did not find what I had hoped for: a note from a fastidious administrator detailing what was done with the sextant box, shoe parts, corks, and bones at some turning point in the WPHC administration.

As the archives are in Auckland, and I am in Wellington I doubt how I could be of much help with the information gathering.

Get on the train, ride to Auckland, and donate a month or two to reading at the Archive.  Let us know what you find.  

P.S.  I hit the wrong button and modified your post instead of replying to it.  My bad!  Marty