Is Your Last Name Slade? You May Inherit a Mansion

Free to one lucky American named Slade, a 16-room English mansion surrounded by 1,300 acres of prime land in southwestern England. But be prepared to work for it.

Baronet Sir Benjamin Slade, 59, has no heir, but is desperate to pass his ancestral home, Maunsel Home - now a busy entertainment venue - to someone in the family. So he has given a DNA sample to a team of genealogists, who will search for the closest match among Americans called Slade; some 5,000 are estimated to live in North Carolina alone.

"Running Maunsel House is a young person's thing and I'm tired of it," Slade told The Associated Press Wednesday. "I spoke to my 14th cousin in England, but he has a nice house of his own and he doesn't want to move."

The lucky man - Slade insists his heir must be male - will inherit the stately home near Taunton in southwest England, which dates in part from the 13th century and boasts a library, a dining room for 80 guests and a staff of five.

Details are available at http://neveryetmelted.com/?p=329

The mansion is described at http://www.statelyhomes.com/areas/details.asp?HID=590&ID=461&path=12,23,98,461

By the way, before posting this article I contacted an old friend, Jim Slade. It seems that he already is actively involved in finding an heir to Sir Benjamin Slade's mansion. If you are a Slade descendant, Jim Slade recommends that you look at the Slade Surname DNA Project at http://www.sladegenealogy.net/dna.htm