As a One Name study, two captivating questions are - Where did the name come from? -  and - How is everybody related or not related?

After 10 years, we have some partial answers.  Families are grouped into lineages using standard research techniques of finding records and verifying connections.  We have discovered at least 5 lineages that are large enough, ole enough and dominant enough that one can suspect that connections will be found with other smaller lines in the same area.   In all cases, these lines appear to go back into the formation of surnames era.

In the case of Peplers - there is a very large family that arises in Wiltshire in the 14 and 1500s.  There is an equally dominant family that comes from Hessen in Germany, although due to German similarity of B's and P's they can be found as Bepplers, Pebblers, etc.  They also provided the founding father for the Pepler family in South Africa, as well as many other places.

Peplows, would seem to be locational, named after the town of Peplow mentioned in the Domesday Book and the town of Pepelow near Ruegen.  Though at this point, we have not found any of them living in either one.  It does lead one to suspect that the both towns were named for a wandering chieftain or such rather than relying on a pebbled hill. We also have two lines of Peplow/es arising in the West Midlands area of England.

Connections - this is where DNA makes an important contribution.  The Y chromosome is directly passed from father to son, it is not affected by the mother's X in anyway.  This means that it is possible for a man to have exactly the same Y pattern as his 15th grandfather on the direct male line. (Usually, however, there are a couple mutations in that length of time.)  Two males with the same surname that match on 34 out of 37 markers in the Y chromosome pattern are very likely to have a common ancestor.

  Our first step was to get representatives of the major paper trail lineages.  We now have tests from the Ruegen line, both Midlands lines, the Wiltshire line and the Hessen/South Africans.  There is still a chance that the Hessen and Wiltshire lines could share an ancestor.   However, the other three would appear to have unique signatures.  We have also found that at least one individual that carried the Worcester DNA signature had been wrongly assigned to the Shropshire lineage and that a Shropshire lad should have sprung from the Worcester bunch.  We are in the process of cleaning up the paperwork.

We encourage any male Peplxx to take a DNA test, especially if your line is not proven further back than the 1800s.  A match with one of the proven lines would help narrow your research.