The Corfield name originated in Shropshire to the east of Church Stretton in the valley of the River Corve in the reign of King Henry II (1154-1189). The name is taken from Corfield village which itself is taken from the river Corve which runs alongside the site. Corfield village does not exist any longer but where it stood, or at least close to its site, is Corfield Farm. As early as the 14th century the Corfields became associated with Cardington, which lies on the north west side of Ape Dale. Ape Dale lies parallel to and to the north west of Corve Dale with Wenlock Edge lying between the two. For centuries the family lived in this beautiful area of England before various branches started moving out of the area. Corfields can now be found all over the world, in particular, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.
The area of Corve and Ape Dales is very rural with narrow winding lanes between villages and hamlets. The churches are generally left unlocked for those who want to have a look around. St. James Cardington  is the church at the centre of the Corfield area and has a number of plaques inside it referring to the Corfields. One of its eight bells, number 6, was given to the church by Thomas Corfield in 1626, and his name, together with another church warden, Michaell Stevens, is inscribed on the bell.
Inside St. Michael and All Angels, Stanton Long , which is close to Corfield, there are two Corfields mentioned on the war memorial. They are George and James, two brothers who lived at Field House in Stanton Long.
Chatwall House, which is about two miles north of Cardington, was for many years the seat of the Corfield family. The last Corfield to own Chatwall was Sir Frederick Vernon Corfield who died in 2005.
There have been Corfields who became Generals, one became a Minister of State and there were Corfields who were coal miners and others who were paupers however, the vast majority are related in some way, all descended from those early ancestors who lived in the valley of the River Corve.

HISTORY OF THE RESEARCH.
Judging by this letter by Frederick Corfield (1821-1883) there was very little known about the Corfield family in 1851, when the letter was written. It was Frederick Corfield's son, Frederick Channer Corfield (1849-1904) who did an immense amount of research on the Corfield family and a great deal of what you see on this web site is due to his work. He travelled around the country and wrote many letters to vicars and rectors of parishes and also family members in his quest for information. This letter written in 1874, to my great grandfather Thomas Corfield, must be one of many thousand that he wrote requesting and giving information. In another of his letters, written in 1873, he writes that he believes that the name Caulfield may also be linked in some way to Corfield, but he was unable to find any definite link. It is possible that Corfield, Caulfield, Cawfield and Cawlfield are all the same family. Preferences for different spelling may have arisen from divisions in the families as they moved to different areas of Britain and then phonetically recorded by scribes, hence Caulfield could well be Corfield spoken with an Irish accent.
In 1993, Justin J. Corfield, who now teaches History and International Studies at Geelong Grammar School in Australia, published "The Corfields. A History of the Corfields from 1180 to the present day",  (ISBN 0646143336). This remarkable book has some 9000 names in it and must have taken an enormous amount of work. With the advent of the computer and the internet it is now possible to broadcast all this information to a wider audience, and this is what I am attempting to do at the same time as trying to tie all the threads together.

THE TREE
There is a main tree which starts with Edward de Corve who is the earliest Corfield so far discovered. There are also others strands of the family which do not link to this tree, for instance there is a group of Corfields in Portsmouth whose earliest ancestor we have was born in about 1798 in Somerset. At the present time I am gradually putting in the data from the book by Justin Corfield. I check wherever possible with census records and the GRO Index and correct errors where I find them, also adding additional family members whenever I find them. I also receive e-mails with corrections and additions which is helpful. This tree is also put on Genes reunited from where I also receive additional information.

If you find any errors or have any additional information please let me know by e-mailing me at  rogcorfield@aol.com

For more photos of the churches of the area and of some of the plaques, memorials and graves please go to this interactive map of Corve Dale.

To download the tree as a gedcom file click here corfield.ged 

To download the tree as a PAF5 file (Personal Ancestry File) click here corfield.paf

To download the tree as a Legacy7 file (fdb) click here corfield.fdb

To download a descendancy chart in pdf format click here corfield.pdf 

For part of the Ordnance Survey map of the area click here ordnancesurveymap.jpg  

(Note Corfield Farm) at grid reference 574920  just to the north of Stanton Long.)
(Get-a-map service image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland).

Cardington village has its own web site at  http://cardington.org.uk

• Map A large scale map of the area
• The Long Mynd A view of the Long Mynd, to the west of Church Stretton, in winter.
• Church Stretton This small town lies a few miles to the west of Cardington.
• Cardington Shrewsbury Council's Conservation Area Appraisal of Cardington.
• Plaque in Cardington Church re: Thomas Corfield This complicated inscription is correct. I've checked.
• Plaque in Cardington Church re: Frederick Channer Corfield who did much of the work in this tree.
• Plaque in Cardington Church re: Richard Fitzherbert Corfield son of Frederick Channer Corfield.
• Plaque in Cardington Church re: Charlotte Jeanette Corfield  wife of Charles Russell Corfield.
• Plaque in Cardington Church where a R. Corfield is mentioned in passing. Richard Corfield who was christened in this church on 15th February 1613
• The interior of Cardington Church.  Where many Corfields have been baptised, married and buried.

The computer programs that I have used for this site are PAF5, a free genealogy program; Legacy 7, Standard Edition (also free), for the construction of the tree's web pages; Microsoft Frontpage for the other web pages; PhotoImpact for the design of some of the icons, buttons, scripts, backgrounds, etc.; and Filezilla, a free FTP program, to upload onto the web server.