Arblaster: yeomen of 1700's + James b1755

 My  name is Steve Arblaster and I have set up this Arblaster family tree website at MyHeritage as a means of providing an easily accessible platform as a place of record for our collective  family history.    The Longdon branch of the Arblaster family were landed gentry that can be traced back to the 1300's and this branch has been relatively well documented over the years. See: http://landedfamilies.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/158-arblaster-of-lysways-hall.html  However note that Edward Arblaster was the last man standing from this line when he died in 1783. The link between the modern Arblaster family which hails from Rugeley and the Longdon branch, remains unproven at this point, although it clearly exists. The two villages in Staffordshire are less than four miles apart. Initial research into the Rugeley branch of the Arblaster family of the 1700's rapidly leads into something of an impenetrable thicket with a bewildering array of Charleses and Johns quickly becoming evident. It transpires that there were three sets of father/son pairs, all called Charles, all within two consecutive generations. The pair born in 1745/1779 lived in Stone, the pair born 1750/1778  lived in Shenstone/Walsall and the pair born 1755/1787 who lived in Checkley. A primary objective has been to document each and every one of the Arblasters that lived during the 1700's, using as source data, parish records, of which there are over 1,300. In the case of the Rugeley branch, all were born and lived in Staffordshire.  The anchor for the first generation was Charles b 1678 who is clearly the sole progenitor for each and every Arblaster living around the world today.  The second generation comprised the three brothers Charles, Richard and John born in the 1720's. The third generation were variously born between 1745 and 1763. The fourth generation in turn were born between 1773 and 1815. It is apparent that Charles and his three sons and also several of the subsequent generation would have considered themselves to be "yeomen" - that is persons having a number of property holdings and who might/might not have been farmers as well. Whilst the Arblaster name was correctly used in 70% of parish records, there are also sixteen further  name derivatives found to have been used, of which Alblaster and Allblaster were the most common. Records were drawn from thirty separate parishes. By the early 1800's there were twenty Arblaster males from the fourth generation that had married and who were left to carry the name forward. The objective here has been to provide bedrock for the building out of any Arblaster family trees involving subsequent generations.  Note that the tree contains full details of all Arblaster males and their wives, but detail with regard to Arblaster daughters is not as comprehensive or exhaustive. A secondary objective has been to focus also on the branch of the family descended from James   b 1755, who was my own direct ancestor.   ***********This website is a private site that you can gain access to in future by entering our address into your web browser:  www.arblaster5.myheritage.com  This "welcome" note will I hope help you through your first few visits. First up - click on "View family tree" at the left of the page which will take you to the family tree itself, which you can then browse. Once signed up as a member, you can access the website as above and then "Log in" to gain full access.    Further you can also most importantly contribute by encouraging your immediate family to get involved too. This can best be done by simply dropping me an email to let me have their email address which I can then process through the system.   As a house keeping issue it is intended that the family tree include not just Arblaster family members but also any other families that might have married into the tree over the years. However it is not intended that parents or siblings of parties marrying into our family tree be included as they properly will form part of their own separate and distinct family trees.    I am happy to maintain this site, but in reality this is going to be a communal effort and will only be a success given our consolidated overall commitment. In particular we should be grateful to the sterling efforts of Dr Peter Arblaster and also both David and Andrew Brooke in assembling much of the more recent information now available to us. Further I am particularly grateful to Marion Hall who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Arblaster family tree, amassed over 30 years of detailed, painstaking work and who has freely given of many hours of her time in helping to build out the content of this website.  As time goes by other committed contributors will no doubt come to the fore too.   I live in Sydney, NSW, Australia and can be contacted by email at steve.arblaster.au@gmail.com or by phone at +61 2 4575 4097.April 2017 ************** Getting started  on the  website  -use  the scroll button on your mouse to reduce/enlarge the size of the family tree shown on your screen -use your  mouse to drag the screen up/down/sideways as needed to navigate, alternatively you can type a name in the "find a person" box at the top right of the screen-click on any name (not the +) and details should appear in a pop up box on the left of the screen [this pop up box may be expanded, if not seen, or later collapsed -  by clicking on the arrow (< or >) next to the small icon at the top left of the window]-in the pop up box, click "Profile", where all relevant information is shown, including any matters of particular note/interest under the heading "Biography".