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Welcome Aboard the Australian

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A Webb Wagg family day at Berrys Bay, 1903 Have you ever stared at an old photograph and almost heard the chatter beyond the frame? That’s exactly how this image feels to me. The boat you see is  the Australian , and the cheerful crowd aboard and ashore are Webb Waggs — perhaps gathering for a day out on Sydney Harbour. At the heart of it all stands our patriarch, William Webb Wagg — surrounded by his sons, grandchildren, and extended family, marking not just a moment on the water, but a legacy taking shape on the shoreline. Meet the man on the left Standing tall at the rail is William Webb Wagg — known variously as Bill Webb, Old Billy, or Grandpa Webb, depending on who was speaking. He’s 76 here, clearly proud to be flanked by so many of his descendants. As the family patriarch, he anchors the scene — a steady presence at the centre of a growing clan. Who’s sharing the deck? Grandpa’s four grown sons crowd the cockpit: Charlie  (Charles) Hayden  (Albert Hayden) Bill ...
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The William Webb Wagg investigation (6)

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Part 6: Extending the Wegg line — Testing WWW's paternal grandparent  In Part 5, the combined documentary and autosomal DNA evidence demonstrated that William Webb Wagg (referred to hereafter as WWW for clarity) can be securely placed as a child of William and Mary Ann (Clark) Wegg of Norwich. This conclusion was not derived from a single match or isolated record, but from the convergence of independent documentary and genetic evidence aligning as expected. The next step is to extend that structured approach one generation further. Having established WWW’s position within the sibling group of William and Mary Ann (Clark) Wegg, attention now turns to the generation above them: his four grandparents. This analysis will consider both the paternal and maternal lines. For clarity, it begins with William Wegg’s own parents — the paternal grandparents of WWW — before turning in the next post to the Clark family and the maternal line. As we step back another generation, both the genetic an...
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The William Webb Wagg investigation (5)

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Part 5: Proving parentage - Establishing William Webb Wagg as the son of William and Mary Ann (Clark) Wegg Scope and purpose This post examines whether autosomal DNA evidence supports the documentary reconstruction of the Norwich Wegg family developed in earlier stages of this investigation. That reconstruction was built using parish registers, census records, naming patterns, chronology, and migration context, and accommodates William Webb Wagg’s  separation from his family through transportation to Australia , proposing a coherent family structure within which he plausibly fits.The purpose of the present analysis is not to generate new hypotheses, but to test whether the genetic relationships predicted by that documentary framework can be observed among known descendants when examined at scale. The DNA analysis presented here follows established best practice in genetic genealogy. Rather than relying on individual centimorgan values — which are highly variable at this generationa...
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