I'm looking for help with my researches relating to the Chance family, who held the Kingsclere General Store up until about 1957. One Edward Chance (1782-1847) was the brother-in-law of the painter John Linnell, my great great great grandfather, and held the General Store from the 1830s, I believe. His descendants continued in the store, ending with two brothers, Charles and John Linnell Chance who died in the 1950s, whereupon the ownership passed to Captain and Mrs Dunn (Mrs Dunn being a descendant of Edward Chance, and grand-daughter of the Victorian surgeon, Edward John Chance). Other Chances married into the Bradfield family of millers. I think I have a fairly complete genealogical record of the Chance family at Kingsclere and elsewhere up to the 1970s, and the Bradfield family up until the present day, though will gladly receive any 'dates' information anyone else has. I do also have some other material, including a 1970s article on the Chance General Store from the local paper. However I'd very much like to flesh out the names on the family tree with anecdotal information, and try and find any photographs or other archive information relating to the Chances. And so I was wondering whether anyone on the list could suggest anything, or put me in touch with anyone else that might have known the Chances or the Dunns. I believe the Chance brothers were notably eccentric, and I hope this has left them marked in someone's memory! I have been in touch with Peter Goff - who suggested this mailing list as a potential source of information, and have written to Mike Leah, who I believe is an expert on local history. However any other further suggestions would be of enormous interest. I'll be happy to send phone and postal contact details via private e-mail, which may then be passed onto anyone not having e-mail that may want to get in contact. Incidentally, it may possibly be of interest to know that a great deal of information on the Chance family in Kingsclere is held in the enormous Linnell family archive at the Fitzwilliam museum. If you have Internet access, you can find an on-line index at the Fitzwilliam web site - one easy route to this is via the links to John Linnell the artist on my own site www.linnells.org.uk Thanks, and best wishes Tim Linnell