My Grinsell family was connected to Warwickshire and Staffordshire, England.  Samuel Grinsell, my ancestor, worked as a blacksmith.  His lineage was difficult to trace but as I started to piece it together, I noticed a trend.  Samuel Grinsell descended from a long line of blacksmiths.  The connection was not simply related to his line, nearly all Grinsells from the 1700s and 1800s seemed to be either a blacksmith or someone who worked with iron and metals.  Furthermore, most of the men with whom the Grinsells were connected, worked in the same industry – iron and metals.

With this knowledge, combined with the locations of these families, the Grinsells can be identified as dwellers of the Black Country.  This area of the West Midlands was traditionally considered as a 14 mile region extending from Birmingham west to Wolverhampton.  By 1785, the road between these two towns was referred to as a continuous town filled with heavy industry.  The Black Country was so active it was said to have been the most industrialized areas of England.  Due to the abundance of coal mines, iron foundries, steel mills, and coking among many other industries, the land was highly polluted with black soot, hence the “Black Country.”