Today I received an email from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. It contained scans of the pages from the book I mentioned in my last post titled “All Hope is not Lost! #WhyDevonResearchIsSoHard – Babb Unabridged.”

I gleefully opened the PDF and was disappointed to find typed pages that exactly mirrored the 15 or so Abstracts that Ian Babb had prepared in his collection. He was always trying to conserve funds and apparently copied these rather than photocopying them. He, of course, didn’t have to travel all the way to Salt Lake City as there are two other copies of the books located in the two Devon record repositories.

While there was no new information in there, I now know where they came from, and I also know that I have the complete collection of what was available. With the help of the indexes that I also mentioned in the last post, I’ll be adding markers for the people whose wills were lost in case other information arises to corroborate their existence. This is the best I’m able to accomplish at this time as I continue to turn over every stone in Devon.

It’s not the answer I hoped for, but this is #WhyDevonResearchIsSoHard!