Lawrence FAULKNER

I've been doing a bit of digging into Wing brickmaker Lawrence FAULKNER's origins. I was trying to link him back to the earlier Faulkners circa 1800 - while I don't know that there is a connection, I've at least figured out who he was, maybe!

He was a bit of a mystery as he's living with his grandparents George and Jane CHAPPEL in 1881, then just with widowed Jane in 1891 and 1901 (by which stage he's 24). I couldn't find a baptism for him in Wing, or a direct link between the Faulkners and Chappels.

However I suspect he is the Laurance Boyd Faulkner whose birth is in the GRO registers in the September 1876 quarter. From there it is a short hop to further suspect he may be the son of Lawrence Boyd Faulkner and Mary Ann B CHAMBERLAIN who married somewhere in the Birmingham registration district a couple of years earlier. And there is a marriage between a George Chappel and a Jane Chamberlain in the Leighton Buzzard district in 1871. All supposition at this stage of course, but it looks promising!

The question that has me pondering now, is why was Lawrence jnr living with his grandmother? Lawrence snr and wife Mary Ann are still alive and well and living in Walsall Staffordshire in the 1881, 1891 and 1901 census (which also advise that Mary Ann was born in Leighton Buzzard while Lawrence was a Londoner), and the couple have further sons who are at home with them.

If there's anyone out there connected to this family, I'd love to hear from you.

Ancestry.com US passport applications

There's a Harry George CHAPPEL born in Wing that is listed as applying for a US passport in Ancestry.com's new US Passport Applications 1795-1925 database.

Unfortunately my subscription is to the UK site and only covers UK databases so I can't see the full entry. *sigh*