Subseries contains personal records including notebooks, autobiographical writing, scrapbooks, memo books, and sketches. Dawson's juvenile writings are largely essays on philosophical and religious topics, but also include his fictional story "Indian Tale" (c.22-c.23). Some scientific lecture notebooks survive from his student years in Edinburgh (c.29). Dawson composed a short autobiography as well as a memoir of his father (c.22), but the major biographical document is his scrapbook of "Family Records" (c.37), containing genealogical materials, Dawson's Edinburgh lecture tickets, his marriage certificate and letter of appointment to McGill, his C.M.G., certificates from learned societies, letters from scientists and public men, printed articles and reviews, and domestic mementos. There is also an obituary scrapbook compiled by his children Anna and William. Dawson's skill as an amateur artist is revealed by 18 cm of pictorial materials, largely pencil or ink sketches of Nova Scotia or Scottish landscapes. His travels in Europe and North America from 1855 to 1886 and briefly noted in pocket memorandum books (c.30), but his journey to the Near East in 1883-1884 is more thoroughly documented in his "Eastern Travel" scrapbook (c.39)

File consists of four indentures dating from 1821, including Alexander Copland and others to James Dawson.

Consists of one item, Thomas Ewing's Geograpy with Maps (in file numbered 1823)

File consists chiefly of business correspondence and records.