Hi again long lost relative, very pleased you have made contact, it's a shame the pictures have gone missing and hope they manage to retrieve them, I can always resubmit the ones that I posted. I like the idea of chatting about the house and its history on this forum, but quite appreciate it makes sense to communicate privately when exchanging our personal details, I don't even know if you are a him or a her!! I have a couple of maths exercise books which Great Great Great Grandad Thomas Mansfield wrote in 1832, the handwriting is beautiful copperplate font and the school address is Alvechurch Academy. I haven't managed to trace the existence of such a place and I suppose it didn't have to be in Alvechurch. I bet Dr Carl Chinn would know! I have started updating the tree on the ancestry site, a lot of the provious info I built up seems to have gone missing. It's an easy family to follow through the census records 'cause they didn't like moving and the house looked frozen in time until 1955. When it rained, buckets & bowls were strategicly placed in the large scullery area where, if you looked up, daylight could be seen peeping through the tiled roof. I haven't mentioned the polterguist yet but my cousin has in another pinfold thread... spooky. Keep in touch, John.