I have been researching a family by the name of Dreaper
who were prominent in the village of Buckland around the turn of the
eighteenth century. George Dreaper was the village blacksmith and he
was born in 1751 and buried at Buckland in 1826. George married
Elizabeth Giles, also from Buckland, in 1775 and they had 12 children.
One of the sons, George, married Mary Hall and it is from them that I
am descended. George junior, like his father, was also a blacksmith. It
is after 1850 to 1860 that the original family is difficult to trace. I
seems as if they disappeared from Buckland except my grandmother, Clara
Dreaper, and her brother who arrived in Essex in the late nineteenth
century, but the rest of the family have completely disappeared. One
problem is that the name Dreaper is often interpreted as Draper on
official documents, a much more common name. Mary Ann Sadler and Mary
Ann Gough also married into the Dreaper family. Any help or information
would be appreciated.
with any queries
)