While I was growing up I was introduced to many and varied relatives. I could never 
quite fathom out who these people were and how exactly I was related to them. Later in 
life it dawned on me that it would have been good to have talked to them about their 
memories of people and events and to have known something about them beyond 
the 'family legends'.

Now I have a son - the Sam of the title, I want him to know a little of where he comes 
from and to have an interest in his, and just maybe other kinds of history. I guess 
this is important because he has a more varied ancestry even than mine and like most 
of us these days he is quite privileged. I hope he will feel a link back to the times 
of overcrowded  housing, coal mines, and hard work which formed his predecessors. What 
he makes of it all will be up to him.

At present this is the story of the PEARCEs who I knew had come from Wales but were 
from England originally, the ELSMOREs who I had heard once had a farm in Sutton 
Coldfield, the GILBERTs who I had never heard of other than as my fathers first name 
and the MIDGLEYs whose history my Uncle Norman had spent many years researching.

Of course the story is a lot more complicated than that.