TRURO — I arrived at the Cornwall Research Office just as they were opening and immediately got to work browsing through some wills. These too are all on microfiche. They are individually indexed in the catalogue so that if you’ve done your homework and know the correct classification, you can go straight to the ones you want to view.

Over the course of the day I found three Hewett, two Popplestone, and two Burnard wills that look as though they could belong. Each being just two or three pages in length (including the cover) I got photocopies of them made—cost: 70p/sheet.

I also took a look at couple of books detailing the population of the parish of St Breock that were compiled prior to the taking of the censuses of 1831 and 1841. I was particularly interested in the earlier one as the census for 1831 no longer exists.
I was allowed to look at them one at a time and had to use a foam wedge or two to help support the spine of the book, a snake weight to help hold down the pages, and a pair of white gloves (which looked far too small but seemed to stretch to fit). Photography is allowed (for a daily fee) so I managed to take lots of photos of pages containing names I recognised. Analysis will have to wait until after I return home.

I also looked at the minutes of the committees of the Wadebridge Urban District Council. An online version of Kelly’s Directory of Cornwall for 1914 lists my great great grandfather Joe Harry Hewitt as a member of the Council. I found the first mention of him as being present at a meeting of the Water Committee in 1914, and he was also present at the last meeting minuted in the volume—a meeting of the Finance Committee in 1921.

I left the Record Office an hour earlier than I had yesterday (well, I had started an hour earlier) and so took the opportunity to go into the city centre to get some cash to pay for my accommodation. Because it was such a fine day, and because I didn’t want to give up my car park (the guesthouse is very busy) I decided to walk. I’ll probably regret the decision tomorrow morning—I didn’t realise just how much of a climb the homeward journey would be!