I sat down at one of the big brown lino-covered tables, along with the other searchers burdened with raincoats and bags, and took a deep breath.

Volume 58 of the Proceedings of the Harleian Society consisted of lists of baptisms, births and deaths for St Mary Mounthaw. Feeling on the edge of some momentous discovery, I turned the pages.

Suddenly there he was, in the christenings for 1776: May 26, Solomon, s. of Richard and Jane Wiseman, Rector James Jones.

I stared at the words, straining after feeling. None came. This wasn’t Solomon Wiseman. These were marks on a page, nothing more. I copied them into my notebook, just the same, and stared, wanting them to split open and reveal the person behind the name: a red-faced baby, crying at the cold touch of water from the baptismal font, the mother ready to spring forward in case James Jones dropped her son, the father shifting from foot to foot, impatient to get back to his afternoon with…no, I was making it all up.

I flipped backwards and forwards, looking for other Wisemans, and found plenty.

1772, May 15, Mary, daughter of Richard and Jane Wiseman.

1767, April 26, Elizabeth, daughter of Richard and Jane Wiseman.

Were these the sisters of Solomon? Elizabeth, eleven years old, suddenly popped into the picture around the font, wearing…what did they wear? Beside her, Mary, aged four, held the edge of her sister’s dress with one hand and picked her nose with the other. Did the sisters make a pet of the new baby, carrying him on their hips, arguing about whose turn it was to push him in the pram? Did they have prams? Or were they the other kind of big sister, the secretive hair-pulling and ear-pinching kind?

Outside the window, the low grey sky had decided to let out some rain. The building site next door speckled and darkened and I could see people on the street two floors below pointlessly turning up their coat collars. I was in no hurry to go out into the rain, so I opened more of the proceedings of the Harleian Society.

I tried the baptismal registers of St Mary Somerset, which swallowed up the parish of St Mary Mounthaw. It had a whole string of Wisemans.

1749, February 4, Robert, son of Solomon Wiseman by Dorothy.

1751, December 8, Sarah, daughter of Solomon Wiseman by Dorothy.

1753, December 23, Solomon, son of Solomon Wiseman by Dorothy.

1756, March 7, John, son of Solomon Wiseman by Dorothy.

1758, January 4, Anthony and Elizabeth, twins, son & daughter of Solomon Wiseman by Dorothy.

1760, Catherine, daughter of Solomon Wiseman and Dorothy.

1762, September 5, Robert, son of Solomon Wiseman by Dorothy.

1774, May 15, Dorothy, daughter of Richard & Jane Wiseman.

1783, April 6, Robert, son of Richard & Jane Wiseman.

1788, June 6, Elizabeth, daughter of Robert & Elizabeth Wiseman.

1789, November 8, Sarah, daughter of Robert & Elizabeth Wiseman.

1791, February 6, Elizabeth, daughter of Robert & Elizabeth Wiseman.