Stop guys... you're making me blush!
As to the name. So far it looks as if they came from Yorkshire. York is, of course, the site of a famous Viking settlement so there could be some Scandinavian connection, but it is likely hundreds of years before the introduction of gunpowder. I haven't traced the genealogy back past TK Sr.'s father - the elusive William who is commonly reported to have been a gunmaker but who I believe was nothing of the sort. I would like to conclusively nail down what he did. I'd also like to be able to prove that William Walker was a relation, as I suspect he was, not because it tells us anything about the guns but because it sheds light on the nature of business in the 18th century.
I am afraid that my book is going to have a good bit of non-gun history in it. I don't think the story makes a lot of sense unless there is sufficient background and an understanding of the world of an up-and-coming middle-class business man in Birmingham. It was different enough to warrant description since most modern readers project their own notions of how things work into the past - sometimes accurately, sometimes not. Birmingham itself deserves close examination. The Ketlands would not have been possible were it not for the remarkable development of B'ham and its mass of skilled tradesmen... of which the gun trade was only a small part.
