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 I find  were from England originally (a place called Yate in Gloucestershire), the ELSMOREs  who I had heard once had a farm in Sutton Coldfield but perhaps came from Shropshire , the GILBERTs who I had never heard of other than as my fathers first name but who I  now know came from Frome in Somerset, and the MIDGLEYs whose history my Uncle Norman  had spent many years researching and seem to be Brummies from way back.

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