I've been interested to read about Ethel Annie Thursfield who was a missionary in Congo and China.
I have a beautiful small Chinese ceramic sculpture of two quails on a rock which has passed through my family over the years. I first saw it as a child at my grandfather's (George Raymond Thursfield).  The story behind it was that it was brought back from China by a member of the family who had lived there as a missionary. Could it have been passed down from Ethel Annie Thursfield?  I can't imagine that there were many missionaries to China by the name of Thursfield.

If anyone has any more information about Annie, her husband the Reverend Herbert Sutton Smith and the book he wrote (Yakusa The very heart of Africa), I'd be very interested.

Hi Andy, welcome to the Forum, have you read one of the history pages on the main site written by John Burton? Ethel and her Husband are mentioned there.

http://www.thursfield-history.co.uk/history%20page.htm

Hi Dave, yes I've read it, that's when it occurred to me that my quails are likely to have come from Ethel.  I'd love to know more about her and her husband.

Hi Andy
My Great Grand mother was Ether Annie Thursfield and my family have the original copies of the Yakusu book but you can read it from the link below.
http://www.archive.org/stream/yakusuveryhearto00smit#page/n7/mode/2up.
Ethel and Herbert had 3 sons Sidney (who died at a young age) Eric and Robert Christopher who was my Grandfather they also had a daughter Mary.
Eric also became a missionary but never married. We have family photo's of them as missionaries out in China if you want any more info let me know. The Church in Audlem Cheshire has a memorial to the Thursfields on it's wall and lists a lot of the family going back a few generations. I have also got a lot of the family tree and census information all the way back to 1871 with their address'.
Let me know if I can give you any thing else.

Hi Penni,
Thanks for the information and the link, really interesting.  Since I posted the request I've had a message from Pat Gould (nee Thursfield) who has a huge amount of information about my ancestors, to say that I'm not related to Ethel Annie.  I feel somewhat disappointed!