[Rodney Marples]
"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."
Matthew 7,20
The year is 1534, King Henry VIII is on the throne of England and the threat of war is in the air. Two things are needed to wage war - men and money, and in these modern times the identification of the quantities of both are instantly available to the government. But if you are Henry VIII, and your standard weapon is still the long bow and your standard method of distant communication is by dictation to a scrivener who records your message with a goose quill onto parchment which could easily take over a week to deliver to the more remote corners of the realm, just exactly how do you know how many men are available for army service and how much money you can raise from the country's population?
Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, knew the solution - order all the able bodied men in the country to be listed. That solves the manpower availability problem and, by happy chance, that will also provide you with the list of the large majority of people in the country from whom tax could be extracted. Cardinal Wolsey therefore ordered each county to make a return of their able bodied men.
Over 450 years later, I am in the Round Room of the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, London. I have just received from the attendant document E101 58/17. It is a large roll of parchment. Very gently I unroll it. The writing is fresh and clear for the most part, although the style of the writing makes it difficult to understand. It is the Muster Roll of 1534 for Derbyshire. I search for Baslow. There it is! I slowly work my way down the list of men looking for my name. Is that one? I look at the entry very closely. Yes, I am sure that the name written there is George Mappole. I look further on and find Robert Marpolle, James Marpull and William Marpull. Clear evidence that my family were firmly established in the Baslow area some 50 years earlier than the earliest recorded entry I had found so far!
I often wonder whether the scrivener, who copied out the Muster Roll, with no more enthusiasm for the job than you or I bring to filling in our Tax Returns, ever thought that his writings would be carefully preserved and be pored over by family historians nearly 5 centuries later.
I first became interested in my family tree some twenty or so years ago when my grandmother showed me a newspaper cutting from "Our Dogs" of the obituary notice of my great-grandfather, Theophilus (Theo) Marples. As he was the founder and editor of that newspaper, the obituary notice occupied virtually the entire front page and the first two or three paragraphs dealt with his family history. The article mentioned that Theo's grandfather, William Marples had been sexton at Baslow for over thirty years. Not long after that my wife and I had an enjoyable Saturday afternoon pottering around Baslow graveyard and taking a quick look at the parish registers.
Since then the exploration of my family tree has been a major hobby of mine. I have found it enthralling, absorbing and time consuming. It has led me to study some aspects of local history, social history, heraldry, and cartography amongst others. As a hobby it seems to combine the thrill of the hunt, with the compulsion of a jigsaw puzzle. It has elements of a detective thriller trying to find a missing piece of information and remorselessly tracking it down until success is achieved. The tree will never be complete as there are some roots and branches I doubt will ever be unearthed, and so there is always the temptation to press on that little bit further in the hope of discovering new information.
Researching family history generally tends to be something of a solitary activity. For most of the time I have been digging backwards into the mists of time. Having arrived at George Marpple of Baslow, who must have been born around 1560, I am not likely to make further significant progress in that direction, owing to the absence of continuous contemporary records. So for the last three years or so I have changed course and tried to identify, and make contact with, as many of my cousins that I can. It must be a quirk of human nature that makes the thrill in contacting a new cousin greater the more remote, both genealogically and geographically, that cousin is. So it has been a particular pleasure to make contact with my fourth cousin once removed, Esther Davis of British Columbia, Canada, my fifth cousin, twice removed, James Marples of Kansas, USA; my half sixth cousins, once removed, Norman Marples of Vancouver, Canada and Frank Marples of New South Wales, Australia, and my sixth cousin, (or possibly half seventh cousin) Ann Sturman of Wellington, New Zealand, to name but a few.
To try to give you some flavour of the appeal of family history research it is worth recounting how I solved a little puzzle that had been bothering me ever since we first extracted entries from the Baslow registers in 1970. There are only two memorial tablets inside Baslow parish church which relate to the Marples family (See Appendix IV). One of them commemorates the death of Thomas Marple, who died as a result of an accident in 1742. The tablet mentions his parents John & Elizabeth Marple and concludes by saying that "Near to this Place lyeth ye Body of Hellen Marple Grandmother to Tho:" (sic).
Sure enough, the Baslow parish registers record the burial of Thomas Marple on 19th August 1742 adding "per accident". Thomas's father is recorded as John, but neither his age nor his mother are given. However, from the tablet we know that Thomas died when he was sixteen years old, and from the registers we can establish a date of baptism of 24th March 1726 when Thomas, the son of John Marple was baptised. Again no information is recorded in the registers about Thomas's mother.
But what of Hellen Marple, Thomas's grandmother? The Baslow registers have no record of any Helen Marple being buried there at even remotely the right sort of time. Nor, for that matter, any record of a marriage of a male Marples to a Helen. There matters rested for several years and it always annoyed me that I could not find the entry recording the burial of Helen Marple.
I then decided to consult the International Genealogical Index (IGI) published by the Mormons (of which more anon). Fortunately, Baslow is one of the few Derbyshire parishes that has been extensively covered. All their entries were cross-checked to mine and some differences were discovered. One of these was the marriage, on the 20th April 1679 of George Marple to Helena Dobb. Could this be my missing Hellen Marple? Unfortunately, the period from 1680 - 1730 is well within the time band for which the Baslow registers give no information on mothers of children baptised; so whilst I suspected that I had now found my missing Hellen Marple, proving it was going to be a different matter.
The final links in the puzzle were supplied when I looked again at some extracts from old family wills and letters of administration that are to be found in Lichfield Public Library. Letters of administration were granted to individuals who had a claim on a deceased person's estate where no will had been made. They were normally granted to a close relative, although occasionally they were granted to the deceased's principal creditor.
On 21st October 1752 letters of administration were granted to John Marple, the brother of George Marple, carpenter, deceased who was buried at Baslow on the 30th April that year. Some months later, on 14th May 1753 letters of administration were granted to Robert Dobb brother in law and principal creditor of another George Marple, farmer, who was buried on 14th January 1753. This suggests that this latter George Marple is the one who married Helena Dobb.
Using the information from the first set of letters and backtracking through the registers to find the baptisms of John and George, with the same father, and earlier than, say, 1731 so that George would have been old enough to have acquired the property appearing in his inventory, I found that the only entries that fitted were George, the son of George Marple, baptised on 29th June 1683 and John, the son of George Marple, baptised on 4th February 1689. At this time the only George that seems to have been around to have a family is the one who married Helena Dobb, and this would make the George baptised in 1683 their first son.
By a somewhat similar process, this John is an ideal candidate for the father of Thomas. So finally the pieces were linked together. I could now draw a little family tree which is shown in Fig.1
Fig.1 Family Tree of George Marple (? - 1753) And the burial of Hellen Marple? Well the registers list the burial of an Ellen Marple on 23rd April 1728 and I am quite satisfied now that this is the entry of "Hellen Marple, grandmother to Tho." This makes sense as Thomas's grandfather, George the farmer, was still alive in 1742, and would not therefore be referred to on the memorial tablet.
To solve the puzzle needed four quite distinct sources: the parish registers, a memorial tablet, the IGI, and some letters of administration.
It also illustrates one of the main difficulties facing the family history researcher and that is accuracy. Accuracy by the original recorder of information and accuracy by the researcher. I am sure we are all quite fed up filling in forms for all sorts of organisations. What is not always appreciated is for how long some of these forms are kept. A few are stored in perpetuity; the census returns being one such group. Who knows who will be turning up this information in the centuries to come, and trying to puzzle out how it all fits together? Casual inaccuracies made now could seriously mislead researchers in the future.
I am equally sure that this is not a new phenomenon. I have no doubt that our ancestors viewed the completion of parish registers as a chore; especially in the light of the scarcity and lack of depth of contemporary education of the vast majority of common folk. Is the Ellen Marple buried on 23rd April 1728 really the Hellen Marple, grandmother to Thomas? Both Ellen and Helen exist as independent names today, and indeed may well have done so then. However I am sure we are all familiar with the propensity for some folk, in some districts, of dropping the letter "h" in everyday speech. It is hardly surprising, then, to find the odd Helen being recorded as Ellen especially when the recorder may well not have been familiar with the person or family concerned.
The other side of the same problem faces the researcher. Because it is known that contemporary records are not 100% accurate, it is all too easy to make a wholly unjustified connection, where none actually exists, on the grounds that mistakes were made in the contemporary records. The researcher must be particularly careful to guard against this possibility, especially when to make the connection might land a tempting prize in research terms. Not only that, but the researcher has to be accurate himself in making notes of extracts from documents and the solution to this problem was, sadly, delayed by just such an inaccuracy on my part!
This problem is far more common than might be supposed. Time and again I have encountered assumptions being presented as "facts" by my correspondents and sources, when accurate research shows them to be quite wrong. Unfortunately the power of the printed word is such that wrong deductions assume the mantle of "fact" merely because they appear in print, particularly if the author is dead or unknown. I shall have to admit that it is quite possible that this book has errors in it. If they exist, then I apologise. It is also for this reason that I have tried to be exhaustive in listing my sources so that researchers in the future may check the assumptions themselves.
Another difficulty which causes problems is people being "economical with the truth". There are many reasons why people should give incorrect information, and I am sure that some will occur to the reader. Whilst some are genuine mistakes, undoubtedly some are premeditated. Some may be for concealing details which people would rather not have known, others will be because some people like "cocking a snook" at officialdom. Whatever the reason it can cause research to be diverted down false routes or even bring it to a dead halt.
By way of example I would cite the case of Peter Marples who was baptised in Baslow in 1829, the son of Thomas Marples and Elizabeth. Peter is a very rare name in our family, and in Baslow was only used once. Therefore when I found a Peter Marples in the Sheffield 1851 census whose details were given as aged 21 (and therefore born around 1830), born in Baslow, living with his father, Thomas Marples, there was no doubting which Peter this was. However, after that I lost track of him. I had known for quite some time of another Peter Marples who appeared in the 1871 census for Sheffield and was married with two children. But as his year of birth from his quoted age came out at 1833 and his place of birth was given as Sheffield I naturally assumed that this was quite another person. Even so I obtained a copy of the marriage certificate but the details on the certificate agreed with the 1871 census. Interestingly his father was given as Thomas Marples, but as Thomas is just about the commonest name in the family, that did not take me much further forward.
The breakthrough came when I found Peter in the 1861 census for Sheffield where, although he had taken 4 years off his age by that time, he still gave his place of birth as Baslow. He was shown living with his wife and one of his children, both of whom appeared with him 10 years later in the 1871 census. Hence the links were now complete. So if you have any consideration for future family historians, don't be tempted to be economical with the truth when it's your turn at the next census!
Origins
When I started the investigation the first job was to establish whether anyone else had already done the work before me. I wrote to every Marples listed in the telephone directories in the United Kingdom. Marples is a very rare name, and there were only about 180 entries to be found there. (Interestingly there are now about 425!). This implies less than 1,000 Marples out of a United Kingdom population of 55,000,000. Various people were kind enough to send me their family trees, including a lot of members of one group of Marples who are descendants of George Marple of Baslow and his son, David. (One of their number had done a lot of careful research of George's descendants down to around 1940. This document is entitled "Lineage of the Marples Family" [Lineage].) This group are all part of my family as George's grandfather, Robert Marple of Baslow (1672-1746) is in my ancestral line.
Despite my very best endeavours, I have not been able to come to any definitive conclusion about our origins. There were several households of Marples in Edensor and Youlgreave (see maps), with evidence of one or two in Baslow, all around 1540. Although I have no positive proof, I believe that these families are all one group, but the links are from a time for which no detailed records exist. This group did not have a terminal "s" on the name. At the same period there is evidence of another similar sized group just over the county border in Yorkshire. This group always had the terminal "s" on their name. This group, I believe, later spread to the Barlborough/Staveley area of Derbyshire. As these two groups, when looked at from an England-wide viewpoint, are very close together it is quite possible that they have common links. I doubt very much whether this can be proved either way.
The derivation of the name is said by surname dictionaries to be "del Mapples" and they cite the earliest references to the name are of one John del Mapples of Yorkshire in 1349 and Thomas, John and William de Mapples who appear in some poll tax records in 1379 for, I believe, Rotherham. The form of name is based on a locality, in this case, some maple trees. I have to say that I am not wholly persuaded by this explanation, especially as Maples exists as a surname today. The present pronunciation of Marples is done with a long "a" so that the word rhymes with "marble". However words with a first vowel "a" are pronounced in the North of England with a short sound. For instance "grass" and "bath" sound like "hat" rather than "heart". The transition of a Northern name "Mapples" to "Marples" therefore seems to require some explanation.
Other forms of name could be based on occupation; smith being the obvious example. However I have recently come across some very early references (from around 1300) to the name "de Merpel" which is possibly connected with the village of Marple in Cheshire. The etymological derivation of that name is from old English and means village on the boundary. (One of the tributaries of the River Mersey flows near the village and forms the county boundary between Cheshire and Derbyshire). This subject is discussed more fully in Appendix VIII.
Some myths exploded
On the other hand the family is certainly not of Huguenot descent, nor have I found any evidence of immigration from Ireland. Theo's autobiographical article mentions these "facts" as part of his family history. The curious aspect of these assertions is that Theo maintains that his father, Rev. John Marples, "went to a great deal of trouble to establish the family's origins". I am at a loss to understand why he did not take the trouble to look at the registers of the parish where he was born, Baslow, as he would have easily seen clear evidence of the family's existence there for the previous 300 years! Theo also claimed that the family settled at Marple in Cheshire and gave our name to the village. This is, of course, nonsense; but it might turn out to be very precisely wrong in that we get our name from the village, and not the other way round!
The "Lineage" referred to earlier has as a first page a synopsis of our early history. It is, as far as I can tell, factually correct. However it relates to the other Marples family I referred to before, and not ours. It appears to have been extracted from an article appearing in the journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological Society on the inventory of Robert Marples of Barlborough who appears in the ancestry of George Jobson Marples set out in Appendix IX. Other genealogies supplied by my correspondents, as well as page 2 of the "Lineage", attempt to link the Barlborough and Edensor families. However, no documentary evidence is quoted to support the claim, and indeed I have been unable to find any myself. So that link must be regarded as highly suspect and unproven.
The Marples' Crest and Coat of Arms
This topic has also been the subject of a lot of ill-informed statements, I regret to say. The term itself is misused. A crest is the device which is attached to the top of the helmet on a coat of arms, and as such, is only one of several components that go to make up the whole, known as armorial bearings. In medieval times crests were literally attached to the top of the helmet and were a colourful addition to a suit of armour. Their original purpose was to identify the occupant of the armour, who could not otherwise be recognised when wearing it. To prevent the system from abuse, the right to bear arms (and therefore crests) was, and still is, regulated by the College of Arms.
In the entire history of the Marples family there have only been 3 coats of arms granted to it. The first, and also the most desirable, was confirmed to Richard Marple of Edensor in 1574. The term "confirmed" comes from the time when the Heralds of the College of Arms went round the country regulating the use of arms in days when abuse had become a serious matter. The right to bear arms was acquired in two ways. The first method was by outright grant and in modern times remains the only legitimate way of acquiring arms. The second way was by confirmation where a claimant could successfully show that a particular coat had been borne for three generations, even though they were illegal. This is the case of Richard Marple of Edensor. Unfortunately the confirmation, which is in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, does not show Richard's ancestors other than to describe him as "the elder". Nor can any trace be found of a descendant of Richard Marple of Edensor although several people have tried. I will have more to say on the Baslow - Edensor connection, or rather, lack of it, later.
The second coat of arms was granted in the nineteenth century to George Jobson Marples, an eminent QC of his day and, I believe, a director of the old LMS railway. He was descended from the Barlborough-based family and was one of the earliest investigators of the family tree. His pedigree, as published in several editions of Burke's Landed Gentry, traces the Barlborough family back several generations. Some early researchers used this pedigree and then make the entirely unsubstantiated connection to Richard Marple of Edensor. However, he was unable to convince the College of Arms that he was entitled to the 1574 arms, and was granted his own arms. The Heralds certainly agreed that there was a possibility of some kind of connection, as the design of the arms he was granted has a great deal in common with the 1574 arms. Theo Marples, never one to miss a trick, promptly, and I am sorry to have to say, illegally acquired the crest of George Jobson Marples, and coupled it with the design on the shield of Richard Marple's arms. As such Theo's version has no standing whatsoever.
It was also around this time that someone consulted Burke's General Armory to find that there are two entries for the Marples family. Essentially they are duplicated references to the arms of Richard Marple. Unfortunately their blazon (the technical description) is inaccurate in that the crest is totally wrong. Notwithstanding this, a picture of these arms was drawn and seems to have received a wide circulation; one version of this appearing in the "Lineage".
The arms of George Jobson Marples are still being borne today. George died a bachelor aged 84 in 1929 but in his will left a considerable sum of money (£49,000 in fact, a sizeable sum in those days) to his fiancee, Dorothy Ethel Green, in his will. It was a condition of his will that to inherit the money she and any subsequent beneficiaries must first change their name to Marples. This was done in 1931 when Dorothy Green changed her name to Marples and again in 1962 when her nephew, Alexander Newton Gardner, of Cardiff changed his name to Marples and was granted the right to use George's arms by Letters Patent in 1964.
The third coat of arms, that appearing at the start of this book, was granted to me in 1984. Like others before me, I cannot prove descent from Richard Marple either. Originally I thought that my branch of the family might be the closest, but as my research continues I have little hope of establishing a connection, as I now believe the Edensor family moved away to Bonsall near Matlock. My design is heraldically very similar to the 1574 coat. Two changes are necessary to move from one to the other. Starting with mine, the colour of the shield, which unfortunately you cannot see, changes from blue to black. Secondly the animals change place. The gryphon moves from the crest to the shield, drops the "sword" and assumes a more upright posture. Two of the horses' heads disappear, whilst the third moves to the crest.
The world of heraldry is full of marvellous archaic words and expressions and I thought it would be fun to set out the blazons of Richard Marple's arms and my own.
The arms of The arms of
Richard Marple of Edensor Rodney Brian Marples of Silchester
Richard's is : "Sable semy of Cross Crosslets fitchy a Gryphon segreant Or and for the Crest upon a Helm on a wreath Or and sable a Pegasus' Head couped with two wings argent maned Or Mantled Gules doubled Argent".
My blazon is : "Azure crusilly fitchy or 3 Pegasus' Heads couped each winged argent and maned gold and for the Crest upon a Helm with a wreath argent and azure A Gryphon sejant erect Azure supporting a Cross Crosslet fitchy in pale or Mantled Azure doubled argent"
An instant herald's vocabulary :
Sable : Black
Or : Gold
Argent : Silver
Gules : Red
Azure : Blue
Semy : "Sprinkled with"
Crosslet : The north, east and west arms of a cross are
themselves a small cross
Fitchy : The downward arm of the cross extended in a dagger shape
Gryphon : Heraldic beast with the head of an eagle on the body of a lion
Segreant : Posture of the gryphon and difficult to describe
in words.
Wreath : Band of material between the helmet and the
crest, with the two principal tinctures
(colours) alternating
Pegasus : Flying horse of Greek mythology
Couped : Cut at the neck with a horizontal line
Mantled : Flowing material which appears on either side of
the shield and crest
Doubled : Used with the colours to describe the colour of
each side of the mantling
Crusilly Fitchy : Alternate expression to semy of cross crosslets
fitchy
Sejant : Sitting
Pale : Vertical
Blazons always start with a colour and this is the background colour of the shield.
Baslow & Edensor
Baslow and Edensor are only about a mile apart. The present day village of Edensor was entirely built in the nineteenth century. Apparently one of the Dukes of Devonshire, who own the village, grew tired of the old one spoiling his view, and so casually razed it to the ground and rebuilt it about half a mile away! Both parishes are fortunate in that their parish registers go back to the sixteenth century, which is rare because of the great destruction of parish records that took place in the Civil War. The Baslow registers go back to about 1569, but the first few years are quite illegible due to the ravages of time and inconsiderate handling. On the other hand the Edensor registers are in a wonderful state of preservation and go back to 1538 when Thomas Cromwell (Oliver Cromwell's grandfather), as King Henry VIII's Chancellor, first ordered parishes to keep records of baptisms, marriages and burials.
The family at Edensor were extensive when the registers start, with evidence of 4 or 5 households, one of these being the Richard Marple who had his coat of arms confirmed. After 100 years the family had all but disappeared, and the next family entry does not occur until the 1890s. Meanwhile, in Baslow my oldest ancestor, George Marpple (c1560-1640), though not the earliest Marples to be recorded at Baslow, appears to be the scion of my family which went from strength to strength down the centuries until around 1900 when they started to leave the village. The last Marples to live in Baslow was buried there in 1964.
Examination of the wills of my ancestors that still survive show that they were mostly village tradespeople or farmworkers, with the occasional farmer or yeoman appearing now and then. Long distance travel for these people prior to 1800 was very difficult because of their status and certainly not to be undertaken lightly. Amongst other difficulties they had to face was that, to avoid being sent back to their home parish by their destination parish, potential travellers had to take with them a settlement certificate stating that holders were not dependent on the parish for financial support. To suppose, therefore, that no connection exists between the Baslow and Edensor families is extremely unlikely. However, I cannot find any link at all. I cannot find any entries in either set of registers which suggest that the two families are related. As most of the families were of lowly status, the chances of finding other contemporary records that might reveal a link are remote. But I shall not give up trying to find it! Watch this space, but don't hold your breath!
Marple - Marples
Unlike the Yorkshire and Barlborough - based family who were called Marples throughout, my family's original name as recorded in the Baslow parish registers was Marpple. There are a variety of spellings for earlier mentions of the name. But starting with Marpple, after one generation the second "p" was dropped, and the name became Marple for the next 150 years or so. With the advent of copper-plate handwriting, the name Marple was concluded with what calligraphers call "a flourish". This became more flamboyant as time went by looking more and more like an "s". After about 1820 the "s" became firmly established and no more names of Marple were recorded at Baslow. Similarly, in both the Edensor and Youlgreave parish registers the name is spelt "Marple" from the earliest records in the sixteenth century. This means that there were several folk who were baptised as "Marple", but buried as "Marples" which caused some confusion from time to time. There is even one gravestone at Baslow where the terminal "s" has been clearly added sometime after the original inscription was carved.
Most family historians agree that the odd letter differences over the centuries are not to be wondered at, especially in view of education standards and facilities, or rather the lack of them. In the main, I agree and I have accepted all sorts of spellings for our name (see Appendix VIII for early references for some of the stranger examples). However I do regard the omission or inclusion of the terminal "s" as significant. Changes of letters mid-word arise for all sorts of reasons but these do not seem to apply for terminal letters. As evidence, I suggest those two very common English surnames Smith & Jones; but how many of you have heard of a Smiths or a Jone? There are none in the London telephone directory. I rest my case.
The surname Marple is still to be found today, both here and abroad. These families generally come from Bonsall and Wirksworth. It is much rarer than Marples itself.
Nooks and Crannies
When people learn that family history is my hobby it is certain that sooner or later I will be asked whether I have found any "skeletons in cupboards" or "black sheep". I have not actually counted how many people are covered by this book, but I estimate that there are around 1,300. Given this number and the timespan of 4 centuries that this book covers it would have been very surprising if I had not found some skeletons sooner or later. However, I feel that gloating over them is a somewhat prurient activity and I shall leave them, very firmly, where they belong - in the cupboard. I can say that I have not come across any murderers!
From the genealogical standpoint there are some relationships worth mentioning. Second marriages are fairly common, especially in the earlier years before the welfare state, when married couples were able to fare better than single people. First marriages among working class folk were more often made with an eye to the future rather than following dictates of the heart. However, third marriages only appear in the tree twice. George Marple (1768-1840) married Margaret Orr, Olive Firth, and Hannah Hearnshaw, having at least one child by each wife, and totalling 13 overall. One of his sons, Calton Marples also married three times - to Elizabeth Pattison, Hannah Gregory and Syth Bagshaw; however, he died childless.
I have not listed modern multiple marriages, as divorce is now a relatively (sorry about the pun) straightforward procedure. Prior to 1852 it was a long, arduous, expensive and decidedly messy undertaking. The situation was not helped by the custom of wives being regarded as part of a husband's chattels. Divorce, when it could be done at all, was broadly the prerogative of the wealthy. For example, between 1715 and 1852 divorce could only be achieved by a private Act of Parliament. For everyday day folk the only real practical solution was for one partner simply to disappear. After a seven year wait that partner would be presumed dead and the remaining partner free to marry again. I have not found any instances of this in our family! Nor of the even more radical and rare shortcut - that of wife selling!
There is one instance of full first cousins marrying when William Youels Marples married Grace Johnson. They are both grandchildren of William Youels and Elizabeth George, and there is one instance of half first cousins marrying: Josiah Marples married Jane Hibbert, both being grandchildren of George Marple (1768-1846). There have been two instances of second cousins marrying. My parents, Theophilus Brian Marples and Edna May Wood, being great-grandchildren of John Salisbury and Martha Fielding are one couple. The other is Muriel Elaine Marple and Alwyn Frederick Wagner, being great-grandchildren of David Marple and Ann Morris.
The parish church of St. Anne, Baslow
Another oddity is the marriage of mother and daughter to father and son. This unusual event occurred in 1960 when Stephanie Middleton, the daughter of Dora Irene Kate Marples and Thomas William Middleton married Edward Beard, the son of Peter Beard on 23rd April. Seven months later, Dora Irene Kate Middleton (nee Marples) married Peter Beard on 7th November!
Male chauvinism is nothing new! Robert Marple (1672-1746) made many bequests in his will (see Appendix I) of one shilling. The full list of recipients is: John Oton, John Choise, John Noton, John Fox, Samuel Johnson, Robert Marple, Thomas Marple and Thomas Sheldon. The significance of one shilling and the position of Robert and Thomas Marple is discussed in the next chapter in the section devoted to Robert Marple himself. When I first studied the will I assumed that the other men were Robert's friends and acquaintances. When I checked my Baslow parish extracts against the Bishops' Transcripts held at Lichfield I found that I had missed the marriage in 1730 of Rebecca Marple to Samuel Johnson. As Rebecca was Robert's daughter the connection struck me. The other recipients of one shilling in Robert's will are not his friends and acquaintances as such, but his sons-in-law! This is the only will I have encountered that totally dismisses daughters like this.
I must mention Robert's son, Robert (1708-1797). This Robert married for the second time in 1784 when aged 76. If that was not enough, his second child by this marriage was baptised in 1796 when Robert was 88! There's stamina!
Not too long ago I received a letter from Pauline Marples, in her capacity of secretary of the Derbyshire Family History Society. She had received a letter from Esther Davis in British Columbia, Canada enquiring about the marriage of her grandparents at Baslow; a Stroyan - Marples marriage, in fact. Pauline knew that I was researching the Baslow Marples and so put Esther and I in contact with each other. I looked at my records and soon discovered the marriage of Isabella Marples to John Stroyan. I was quite excited about this as Isabella was the great aunt of my great-grandfather. This meant that Esther and I were related, although I was a bit concerned that the date Esther quoted for the marriage was some decades out. Further correspondence and search showed that the marriage I had discovered was not that of Esther's grandparents at all but her grandparents' grandparents! Esther asked me to get copies of the marriage certificates of 3 brothers - William (her grandfather), Ernest & John Stroyan who were Isabella's grandsons. These brothers married 3 sisters, who were also Marples, being the daughters of James and Eliza Marples of Repton, one of whom was the Eleanor Alice Marples Esther was looking for in the first place. Having started out thinking I was related to Esther through her grandmother it turned out that we were related through her grandfather instead and that I was no relation to this new Marples family. Perhaps the most surprising discovery was that the sisters' mother, Eliza Marples, was herself a Marples, being the daughter of Samuel Marples of Melbourne. Esther is in the probably unique position of having 3, as yet unrelated, Marples families in her ancestry!
It was a particular pleasure to hear not long ago that Esther (my fourth cousin, once removed) and her family had entertained Norman David Marples of Vancouver (my half sixth cousin once removed) and his family for the day on Esther's farm. The farm is only 15 minutes from Norman's house but until we all corresponded they were completely unaware of each other! They are half sixth cousins to each other.
On the darker side
On the darker side, was my great-great-grandfather's brother, William Marples (1833-1868) murdered? He was last seen on Christmas Day 1868 yet his body was not discovered for another 40 days when it was recovered from the River Derwent at the back of the kitchen gardens of Chatsworth House. Notwithstanding marks of violence on the body and no explanation given for his absence of 40 days, the inquest jury returned an "open" verdict of "found drowned". A digest of the newspaper report appears in the main biographical notes.
The record for the greatest age to which a Marples has yet lived that I have been able to verify is held by Winifred Emily Marples (Chart 6, generation IX) who died a couple of months short of her 99th birthday, followed by her brother, Stephen Arnold Marples who died 6 months short of his 99th birthday. Indeed the family of David Marple seem to be blessed with above average longevity.
Trying to work out relationships can be a bit confusing. The notes accompanying the tree charts themselves explain the use of generation lines. The term "half cousin" arises when two people share only one of a pair of grandparents. For instance, my fellow family historian, Norman David Marples and I are half cousins as, although we both have Robert Marple (1672-1746) as a common, several times great, grandfather we do not share the same, several times great, grandmother, because Robert married twice and I am descended from the first marriage and Norman is descended from the second. The term "removed" is used where two cousins are not on the same generation. Again using Norman and I as an example, Norman appears in generation XI (Chart 6) whilst I am on generation XII (Chart 3). Hence it is my father, Theophilus Brian Marples who is Norman's half sixth cousin as they both appear on the same generation. I am one generation removed from my father so I am Norman's half sixth cousin, once removed. Any questions, so far? No? Good!
With all that in mind, then, the most remote genealogical relationship that exists between people with the surname Marples living as this is written (August 1991) is that of half eighth cousin. This relationship exists between all those appearing on Chart 8, generation XIII with all those appearing in the same generation on Charts 3, 4, and 9. The widest genealogical bridge exists between all those on generation XIII and John William Marples and William John Marples, both of whom appear in generation IX of Chart 5 where the relationship is either half or full fourth cousins, four times removed.
Finally, there is George Jobson Marples who died in 1929 aged 84. He left a considerable sum to his fiancee, Dorothy Ethel Green on condition that she change her name to Marples and bear his arms, as has already been said above. I wonder what great tale of unrequited love lies behind these bald facts, especially as George seems to have been a confirmed bachelor for most of his life?
Conclusion
That, then, is the background to this edition of the Marples Family tree. As I said earlier, it will never be finished, there will always be another piece to slot in place; another graveyard to visit in the hope of finding an interesting gravestone; another will to examine to see what treasures of information it contains.
Of course as time goes by, new generations (or should that be branches, or even twigs?) will be added to the tree. Do please let me know of these events so that the tree can be maintained upto date. In the following pages I have set out such proof that I have of the tree I have compiled, so that you can see for yourselves which parts are certain and not so certain. I hope you enjoy this little work, it has certainly given me enormous pleasure compiling it.
RODNEY MARPLES
Heathercote House
Silchester Common
Hampshire
England
August 1991
Finally, never forget: "A half sixth cousin, once removed, is very hard to replace."
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Copyright © 2001 Ellis L. Marples
Last Reviewed or Modified: September 04, 2008