Victor Emanuel Chaplin

  General Notes:

Kathleen Hay notes:
Elizabeth Davis is my Davis connection. She married Rebecca Gillingwater's g-g-g-grandson, Victor Emanuel Chaplin, had 9 children, then moved all of them to Toronto, Canada. My grandmother, Annie Chaplin Brown, was the only one who resettled across the border in the USA.

I was interested to see your Davis/Davies were in Wales. That's what I expected to find, because the only family information about Elizabeth Davis (They said Davies.) was that her family was from Wales. When I found her on Ancestry member trees, I wrote to the lady whose profile said she lived in Wales to ask if she knew a Wales connection. She said a cousin had told her they were a Romany family until they settled in Great Bookham, Surrey. Perhaps they had wandered around Wales?

What a surprise. Our American Chaplins have red hair and freckles. And the Davis family was in Great Bookham in all the census 1841-91, always different locations, though. All their children were born there except a middle daughter born in Southampton, Bittering.

I researched, and I believe (but can't prove) that they were gypsies. Problem is I can't tell if their census addresses were on public land or not. In 1861, they lived on Boswell's Row (no street number); that is almost a sure sign. Davis/Davies is a very common Romany surname. They were all agricultural laborers. Also, Leatherhead Epsom Surrey was like English gypsy home base. There's a Romany museum now, and it was a meeting place for centuries.

Victor married Elizabeth Davis, daughter of William Davis and Mary Ann Richardson. (Elizabeth Davis was born in 1860 in Bookham, Surrey England and died in Jan 1922 in Toronto, Ontario, York County Canada.)