Wills are an invaluable source of information for any researchers and often hold many hidden clues, including relationships etc. Unfortunately Devon lost all its early wills when Exeter was bombed during the war and there were no Westaway transcripts in either the Record Office or West Country Study Library
However in 1995, whilst visiting the Society of Genealogists, I picked up a book on the Reddaway family. In it was clear evidence that someone had access to early Westaway wills. I phoned the author of the book who lived in Bristol, and he told me that John Took Westaway, (from the Inwardleigh branch of Westaways) had collected a number of Westaway, Langmead and Reddaway wills and that the transcripts of these wills had been filmed and were stored at Salt Lake City. Ruth Clark, a Westaway descendent of the Ashburton Westaways, lived in Nottingham near the Mormon main Office and she ordered the film and photocopied all the early Westaway wills that were on the reel. There were 56 in total and it was like winning the football pools. Another amazing breakthrough was when Bob Westaway died in 1996 his daughter sent me all his working documents on the early Westaways. In this was a letter from a John Robert Ford Amery, (a Westaway descendant) saying he had a 16th century chest full of Westaway wills etc relating to the Belstone branch. I tracked down his address to Wendover in Buckinghamshire and wrote to him, and he kindly sent me copies of some of the missing wills on his branch of the family so there are now over 90 dating from 1600 - 1857.
Early Westaway Wills Index & Transcripts
