When the late Ted Te Maiharoa, who was working in the shed, recited his lineage back 23 generations, Mr Malcolm (66) realised his knowledge of his own ancestry was limited.
Extending back just two generations beyond his own it was hardly comparable, and the conversation got him thinking about his family history.
A breakthrough came when three tourists arrived "hopelessly lost" at his Enfield farm and he told them how his grandfather came from Scotland.
The father of one of the young women had a farm close to the Malcolm croft known as Skitten outside the town of Wick. Over the next two decades, several visits to Scotland allowed Mr Malcolm to trace the story in detail.
He spent several days studying in the local archives, tracing as far back as 1660 when one family member, Donald Malcolm, had his misdeeds recorded by the local authority.
He later went farming and members of the Malcolm family have been farming ever since.
Eventually, hard times and lack of opportunity drove two brothers, Donald and Alexander Malcolm, to leave Scotland and eventually settle in Otago.
Donald built a house at Otokia and established himself as a builder.
Alexander left the West Coast goldfields and walked over the Southern Alps and Canterbury Plains until he arrived in Oamaru.
By the late 1860s, he could see agriculture was developing in North Otago. He cleared land at All Day Bay for Matthew Holmes, of the Awamoa estate, before buying his own farm at Enfield.
In the 1880s, two nephews arrived from Scotland to join the brothers.
Now retired in Oamaru, Mr Malcolm said writing had never come easy to him, despite There and Back being his third book.
"I'm always conscious of the 44% in school certificate English," he said.
A prominent member of the North Otago community, Mr Malcolm edited Boots, Belts, Rifle and Pack with Dorothy McKenzie, a narrative of Private William Malcolm's experiences at war, and he also compiled From Teaneraki to Enfield, a photographic panorama of the Enfield area.
