George Standard Chapple - The Chapple Family in Cornwood

In my last post I described the search for information about George Standard Chapple. Our initial thought was that his mother had taken up with a man from Cornwood named Chapple, so we looked at all of the Chapples in that area.

I gave all the parish information to the descendant of George and he went ahead and constructed a parish-wide family tree.  It was very impressive! George had given the name John Chapple as his father at the time of his second marriage in 1882.

The Chapple Family in Cornwood Parish, Devon; information from parish baptism and marriage registers

There are a couple of John Chapples, born in Cornwood, who could be his father – one in 1806 and one in 1796 (the latter was my first cousin, five times removed) – but confirmation of either cannot be made.

In the end, drafting of the detailed family chart turned out for naught!  If George’s real father was a Chapple, we were not able to identify him.

No doubt many people have constructed extensive family trees like this one only to find out they had the wrong people and had to start all over again?

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He serves as the Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.