Today was the BIG day .. Tony and I went to the National
Archives at Kew to seek information on our ancestor who was believed to be a
spy in Russia during the early part of the 1900’s. The trip was a good one and took just over 1
hour. It is a massive place. I had to register to be able to look at
anything, this involved doing a computer test, then having to show my passport
and drivers license. I got a photo ID
that was barcoded and enables me to order and look at any records that are
available for public viewing. The
security is much higher here than in Adelaide.
Tony and I ordered our Foreign Office records we required, had a coffee
whilst they were being retrieved.
At first it was a bit laborious then we hit the
Jackpot! Quite a bit of documentation
was there about our ancestor Richard Bielby, we got quite excited to be able to
find anything. Then the biggest find we
could have imagined possible, his written account of what happened. I ended up taking 181 photos! We left with big smiles on our faces.
Tony decided as we had a successful day we could go home via
Salisbury to see Stonehenge. We didn’t
pay to get in, but looked at it through the fence, as you can see by the photos
we had a good view AND the sky was blue!
Sally sent us on a shopping mission, so we went into Salisbury to get
the goodies. The Cathedral is huge, I
didn’t get to have a close look, but it was good. We got home a tad late, 7.30 actually, but
Sally wasn’t too annoyed, well it didn’t show.
She cooked a magnificent risotto, washed down with pear cider.
Tony and I were to go through our finds today, but were so
tired, we chose to wait till the morning.
Oh you can't just say you went to TNA, and found records. We want details!!!
ReplyDeleteDay 40 has a few more details .. I haven't read through all the stuff yet .. extremely interesting stuff!
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