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.”