Emily Henrietta Emptage married in Hull in 1886, when she was supposedly 21. Her husband, William Edmonson Chafer jumped ship in Melbourne, Australia in 1887. Emily joined him in there in 1889. But a family myth disputes the facts.
From the Isle of Thanet to the Isle of Sheppey
That the Emptages of the Isle of Sheppey were genetically linked to at least one branch of the Emptages of the Isle of Thanet has been proved by DNA tests.
Whilst the chances of finding a documented paper trail confirming the link are highly unlikely, the study of the baptism and marriage parish registers, coupled with the use or re-use of certain names, has identified the Emptages who probably migrated from Thanet to Sheppey, the place that they stopped at along the way and when the migration happened.
Emptages in 1841 and before
We can trace the origins of all the Emptages in the UK at the time of the census in 1841 back to three places in Kent: the Isle of Thanet, the Isle of Sheppey or Dover.
But between 1560 and 1840 there were many baptisms elsewhere, both in the wider Kent county and outside of Kent including the London/Surrey/Middlesex areas. What happened to those children and to their descendants?
An attempt to connect the Thanet and Sheppey Emptages
As part of our One-Name Study, we are keenly interested in establishing the connection between the Emptages of the Isle of Thanet, who were there at least from the 1400s and the Emptages who arrived in the Isle of Sheppey in the early 1700s.