Cockney Yapp’s & Yapp stories.


Hello to all: My name is James Yapp; I was born in Walthamstow London E17 in 1944. Sadly, I appear to be the eldest living Yapp in my particular Yapp Family line that I can see but I am doing my best to find a link that would prove me a younger member.


I now live in Queensland Australia, my wife Joyce and we married in Finsbury Park, North London in 1964 and we immigrated to Australia in February 1965. We now have an Aussie Yapp family consisting of our own 5 children (2 Deceased) and 7 Grandchildren.


 


I have been asked to make a contribution to this wonderful Yapp Heritage site so I will try to add some stories, skeletons in the cupboards and some humour from what I have discovered from my research in tracing our own family line to the Yapp’s.


In my readings I have discovered that the name Yapp is actually the 3,515th most common name in the UK and I believe I made that interesting discovery on the sofeminine site. (Just the start of several bits of useless but interesting information)


 


I am confident that I have my findings correct to my 2nd Great Grandfather; William Yapp born in 1840 in Warwickshire, Unfortunately I can find no record of his birth in any BMD records, it is only the 1841 census records that show him, his parents and 3 siblings.

TRANSCRIPT COPY OF THE 1841 CENSUS:


 RESIDENCE: --- CONFIRMED: From Ancestry Census Records.


1841 Census: Mosley St, Bordesley, Warwickshire, UK.


1841 England Census


About William Yapp


Name: William Yapp


Age: 7 Mo


Estimated Birth Year: abt August 1840 *** (This would match with the age of 7 Months.)


Gender: Male


Where born: Warwickshire, England


Civil Parish: Aston


Hundred: Birmingham


County/Island: Warwickshire


Country: England


Street address:


Occupation: View Image


Registration district: Aston


Sub-registration district:  and Bordesley


John Yapp 30


Sarah Yapp 35


Mary Yapp 9


John Yapp 7


Frederic Yapp 4


William Yapp 7 Mo



William Yapp married Hannah Maria Price Bethnal Green London in 1869.


Marriage Certificate for William Yapp and Hannah Maria Price:

My Grandfather Matthew Yapp


My Grandfather Matthew Yapp was born the illegitimate son of Hanna Maria Price in London in 1865 and for the first 16 to 20 years of his life he was known as Matthew Price as per the listings of the 1871 Census which shows Matthew Price aged 6 living as a visitor with his Mother Hannah Yapp, William Yapp and his Uncle John Price in Mile End London.



Household Members: Name Age


John Price 18


Matthew Price 6 (Yapp)


Hannah Yopp 23 (Yapp)


William Yopp 29 (Yapp)


The 1881 Census records shows Matthew aged 16 living with his Grandparents Frederick and Martha Price and his Uncle Henry Price also in Mile End London.



Household Members: Name Age


Fredrick. Price 63


Martha Price 53


Henry Price 23


Matthew Price 16


Matthew changed his Surname to Yapp somewhere between his 16th and 21st birthday. Matthew married Alice Turner on the 25th December 1885 aged 21.


 


One would have to ask the question: Why would anyone with the perfectly respectable name of Price want to change it to Yapp!


I believe that there would be only two possible reasons which I cover here in a mail I wrote to my sister Linda in 2007 in regards to Matthew’s name change.


 


1) I believe William Yapp was Matthew’s father; Hannah was only 16 when she became pregnant.


William was 7 years older than Hannah.


I think William would have been living in London at that time.


 


2) I believe Hannah and William were afraid to tell her parents who the father was?? So she kept his name absent from the birth certificate.


 


3) William may have promised to marry her once she was older?? So the name of Price was taken on to cover the tracks??


 


4) I wonder why though, the name of Yapp was not taken on once William and Hannah did marry in 1869.


Matthew was still a Price at age 16 but somewhere between then and age 21 he changed it to Yapp.


 


5) My thoughts are this: Just before Matthew married in 1885 but after the death of William in 1878. Hannah told Matthew who his real father was and that he should take on the name Yapp to continue the name on. Either that or Matthew thought so much of William that he wanted to take his name on, which sounds a little strange as he was obviously brought up by the Price’s. So there really had to be a very good reason to change it to Yapp. After all, why on earth would anyone take on the name Yapp over Price without a sound reason?


 


That makes some sense out of him actually changing his name to Yapp. After all he did have a choice of leaving it at Price or even changing it to Clark after Hannah's 2nd marriage but he made the change to Yapp and the only good reason is that his real father was in fact William.


 


So what do you think about that as a good possibility??? It does make some sense to me and gives me a very good reason to keep working on the Yapp line.


 


So, as I sit here and ponder the possibility that I could have been; “Little Jimmy Price” ...but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it does it? So “Little Jimmy Yapp” I became.


[Now proven to have been a "Little Jimmy Gigg" Webmaster]


UPDATE


We have now discovered with the confirmation from the latest results of further comprehensive DNA tests that have been published now show that our family Yapp name heritage only goes back 4 generations! We knew that our Mathew Price had changed his name to Yapp and had we had assumed that this was due to the result of an earlier relationship of his mother Hannah and a William Yapp, whom she later married.

However, we now know that this was an incorrect assumption? The new DNA results now show that Mathew was the issue of an earlier liaison between Hannah Price and a Henry Gigg. We hope to provide more information on this if it ever comes available.