William and Kate - Cousins

Artwork: Gregory Chapin Joens

I once heard that nearly 75% of the population of England is related to the royal family. According to the connections I've searched on Geni.com, I am a 13th cousin of Prince William and a 15th cousin of Kate (through my Chapin line). Normally, I don't tend to follow royal weddings, but the cousin connection made it easier for me to find the time to read about and watch the celebration.

Alphonso Taft - US Secretary of War, US Attorney General

Artwork: Gregory Chapin Joens

Alphonso Taft (November 5, 1810 – May 21, 1891) was the Attorney General and Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant and the founder of an American political dynasty. He was the father of U.S. President William Howard Taft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonso_Taft

Family Tree:

Ambassador Alphonso Taft, U.S. Attorney General, Secretary of War

Sylvia Taft
his mother

Berthiah Howard
her mother

John Chapin, Jr. (1730)
her father

John Chapin, Sr. (1698)
his father

Capt Seth Chapin (1668)
his father

Josiah Chapin, Esq. (1637)
his father

Deacon Samuel Chapin
his father

Harriet Beecher Stowe - Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin

Artwork: Gregory Chapin Joens

Source: Wikipedia

Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) depicted life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom. It energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. She wrote more than 20 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings and her public stands on social issues of the day.

Francis Stuart Chapin - sociologist and educator.

Artwork: Gregory Chapin Joens

Francis Stuart Chapin (3 February 1888 – 7 July 1974) was an American sociologist and educator.

He received his bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1909, as well as his PhD from the same school in 1911. He taught economics at Wellesley College for one year. He then moved to Smith College where he taught sociology and served as department chair (1912-1921).

He played an important role in creation of a quantitative, statistical sociology in the United States in the years between World War I and World War II (1920-40).

He also served as the 25th President of the American Sociological Association. He was a prime mover in the creation of the Social Science Research Council.

Other Links:

http://www2.asanet.org/governance/chapin.html

Clint Eastwood is a Chapin Cousin

Artwork: Gregory Chapin Joens

Actor Clint Eastwood is a direct descendant of Deacon Samuel Chapin from the branch of Catherine (Chapin) Bliss Gilbert.

From Wikipedia:

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Following his breakthrough role on the TV series Rawhide (1959–1965), Eastwood starred as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) in the 1960s, and as San Francisco Police Department Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films (Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, and The Dead Pool) during the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, along with several others in which he plays tough-talking no-nonsense police officers, have made him an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.^[1][2]

Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and Producer of the Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor, for his work in the films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004). These films in particular, as well as others including Play Misty for Me (1971), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Pale Rider (1985), In the Line of Fire (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and Gran Torino (2008), have all received commercial success and/or critical acclaim. Eastwood's only comedies have been Every Which Way but Loose (1978), its sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980), and Bronco Billy (1980); despite being widely panned by critics, the "Any Which Way" films are the two highest-grossing films of his career after adjusting for inflation.

Eastwood has directed most of his own star vehicles, but he has also directed films in which he did not appear such as Mystic River (2003) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations and Changeling (2008), which received Golden Globe Award nominations. He has received considerable critical praise in France in particular, including for several of his films which were panned in the United States, and was awarded two of France's highest honors: in 1994 he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal and in 2007 was awarded the Légion d'honneur medal. In 2000 he was awarded the Italian Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.

Since 1967, Eastwood has run his own production company, Malpaso, which has produced the vast majority of his films. He also served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, from 1986 to 1988. Eastwood has seven children by five women, although he has only married twice. An audiophile, Eastwood is also associated with jazz and has composed and performed pieces in several films along with his eldest son, Kyle Eastwood.

Inventor Daryl M. Chapin

Daryl M. Chapin
Born July 21, 1906 - Died January 19, 1995

Did you know? Chapin Cousin Daryl M. Chapin was part of a team from Bell Labs who invented the first practical device for converting sunlight into useful electrical power.



http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/375.html

Submitting articles to All Things Chapin

If you have an item of Chapin history you would like to post, please let me know. It would be great to have the input! Thank you, Greg Chapin Joens