I have gotten back to Edward Chapman, born in 1754, on the Chapman line. This is the earliest Chapman that is easy to find. To go back farther will take a lot more time and effort than I want to spend right now. I want to work on other lines too. And it may be that I cannot get back any farther than Edward anyway.

Edward married Dorothy Pattinson in 1776 in Wispington, Lincolnshire. They had some children but there are no entries in the parish registry for them. Edward and his family were resettled to Langton By Wragby in 1788, according to the poor relief act. There were several conditions whereby people could move from one parish to another, so it’s not known exactly why the family moved. In Langton By Wragby, they had a son Cornelius about 1791, and Dorothy died in 1794.

In 1798, Edward married Frances Graves, and they had 7 children, all baptised in Langton By Wragby. Their first son, Joseph, was baptised in 1801.

In 1825 in Reepham, Joseph married Mary Wells, who was born in Metheringham. They had 9 children. Their first son, William, was baptised in 1826 in Reepham.

In 1848, William married Sarah Harvey in South Carlton. They had 14 children. Child number 8, our William Chapman, immigrated to the USA and married Sarah Jane Allen in 1888 in Joliet.

I am going to see if I can get any farther back on any of the female lines, before I move on to Thompsons and Allens. I do know that Sarah Harvey’s parents were John Harvey and Bridget Small, who married in 1813 in Reepham. Mary Wells’ parents were Luke Wells and Bridget (unknown). I don’t know anything yet about Frances Graves.

The Chapmans I have found so far seem to move around a bit, but stay in the same general area of Lincolnshire, near the town of Lincoln. They were mostly farmers. Lincolnshire is a mostly agricultural county, so the area where the Chapmans were from is mostly farmland surrounding small villages. I’m learning a lot about this area, and it sounds like a lovely place to visit some day…..

In the meantime, I’ll keep plugging away at these English families. I don’t have a ton of time to spend on research, and my genealogy time lately has been taken up quite a bit by watching video training sponsored by Legacy. Every week, they have a live webinar that they record for people who actually have day jobs and can’t watch the webinar live, and the recording is usually on their website for about a week for free. After that, you have to subscribe to their webinars to view them. So I try to get to the webinars during their free week. Saves me money but costs me time.