Archives

AI-generated image of archival research materials on a wooden table, including document boxes, a typed page, photographs, tags, and a magnifying glass.

What the MI5 Files Record: Equipment of the 1940–41 Agents

/ Archives, Things / 4 minutes of reading

The wartime spy case files contain no consolidated inventory of equipment; each agent’s gear must be reconstructed from scattered documentation. Any attempt to identify patterns requires scanning hundreds of documents across dozens of individual files. Years ago, I began compiling a spreadsheet to track key information on the wartime spies, specifically those tried under the

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Open archival storage box containing typed mid-twentieth-century documents on a wooden table in a records repository.

Tracing MI5’s Donation of Captured Spy Equipment to the IWM

/ Archives, Things / 7 minutes of reading

Tucked away within two wartime spy files are documents that shed light on the provenance of some of the spy equipment displayed at the Imperial War Museum. After the war, Lt. Col. W.E. Hinchley-Cooke oversaw the donation of some of the spy artifacts to the museum and a small series of internal MI5 memos reference

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Rows of old archival case files and folders stacked on wooden shelves, many tied with string and labeled with handwritten tags.

Working with Swiss Archive Documents: Human + AI in the Trenches

/ Archives / 7 minutes of reading

When I first tried using ChatGPT for historical research, I called it a complete waste of time. It invented sources, botched facts, and turned one MI5 officer into a Frankenstein composite of random facts. I closed the tabs and went back to sifting through archives. Two years later, the Swiss Archives dropped a mountain of

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