A FAMILY OF NAIL MAKERS FROM THE BIRMINGHAM AREA, and some related branches by A Michael Dancer 2013
This is an account of the history of my mother’s family which I traced through seven generations over 20 years ago. In early 2005 I forwarded a table of those generations to my aunt in New Zealand, and subsequently my cousins have published versions of it on the general genealogical websites.
The family originated in the north Worcestershire parish of King’s Norton, now part of the Birmingham metropolis, and its members were engaged in the manufacture of iron nails, a west Midlands craft harking back to mediaeval times. Family members were often illiterate and went through periods of poverty. Despite that, my grandfather 3 times removed achieved sufficient fame, as a Primitive Methodist lay preacher, to have his biography published a year after his death in the 1870s. The file is in Portable Document Format (.pdf) and may be downloaded as PDF Bayliss.
I recommend the free, secure Foxit PDF Reader: 