Hi all, it's been quite some time since my last post but I been watching from the wings and pleased to see that the list is still busy. I thought i'd re-post interests. I have hit a 'brickwall' - my earliest direct ancestor is Joshua GLOVER d.1786. He was a Birmingham Hardware Merchant (he sold Birmingham wares like buckles, buttons, knives on the Continent) and was also an Ironmaster in Wales, a High Bailiff of the Manor of Birmingham, and a Mine adventurer (a shareholder in today's parlance) in Cornwall. He married 1.Anne Stanton and 2. Sarah Tyler and when not at the Ironworks at Abercarne in Monmouth he lived at Key Hill House in Hockley. The land were the house stood was quarried away in the mid to late 1800's it actually stood within what is now the Key Hill Cemetery. I reckon he was from a moneyed family but i cannot find his baptism in published Midlands parish registers or connect him via extensive Wills research with any of the prominent GLOVER families of the day some of whom were in the Iron business. For years I've been 'mining' the substantial collection of my family's papers in the Birmingham Archive but they don't go back beyond 1770's. So now i'm pursuing the notion that he might not be an out of towner (ie from London or Yorkshire) but might be of the GLOVER's of Mancetter and Baxterly of whom the most famous member is Robert GLOVER the protestant martyr. Has anyone researched this family or knows of a pedigree that shows this family beyond 1700's. I'd most grateful for any assistance or advice. Robert GLOVER .... Australia http://sites.google.com/site/glovergen/