In exhausting all wills and administrations relating to one surname in a given repository the worker is not only adding considerably to the history of that family but is also gleaning many invaluable buried references to other families in the same social stratum. To abstract all the wills, &c, recorded in any year irrespective of the names of the testators is excellent work, but it results in only a slight increase in our knowledge of any given family. On the other hand, a work of this nature, abstracting all wills, &c, of one surname, results in a complete record extending over some five or six centuries, and throws light on all the intermarriages of and properties held by that family.
The principal Dew family was long settled at Whitney Court, co. Hereford, and its pedigree is to be found in Cooke's History of Hereford, and Crispe's Visitation of England and Wales. These Dews inherited Whitney from the Wardour family, who in turn secured it by intermarriage with the ancient family of Whitney. The present head of this family is Arthur Tomkyns Dew, Esq., F.S.G., of Monkerton Manor, near Pinhoe, Devon, and it is to him that we are indebted for the idea of this work.
