Where did that Webb Wagg name come from?
We've all asked where did "Webb Wagg" come from and why are there all the variations.
Recently, I met a third cousin who is descended from William Webb-Wagg (1873 to 1974) - son of William and Sarah. She had two documents that had come down through "the Williams" (as I now call them) which supports and answers many of our questions.
The mystery is not fully solved yet....
First, we have William Webb's discharge from the Gwalior (sic) on 4 March 1853. This was a ship that sailed around Australia and the Pacific in the 1850s. So we see that William was working under the name of Webb not Wagg. He continued to do so for all his working life being referred to as "old Billy Webb" I've read.
Next, we have the original registration of the marriage between William Wagg and Sarah Turner at the Parish of St James, Sydney on 18 April 1853 - just six weeks later. You'll spot that one of the witnesses is Jane Turner, Sarah's sister, who went on to marry John Trickett.
So William was working as a Webb but married as a Wagg.
It's not until 1862, when their fourth child Charles was born, that the Webb appeared in NSW BDM registrations.
All the children were registered with the family name Wagg but some had Webb recorded as a given name e.g. Charles W Wagg.
Our big search is to find William's birth details...
For a long while it's been though that William's parents were William Wagg and Sophia Kitchen who came to Australia in 1837 with a 5 year old William Wagg. This isn't correct as we have established that William, the son of William Wagg and Sophia Kitchen, died near Bathurst in 1873.
Our William died on 08 Jan 1905 at his home - 54 Blues Point Road North Sydney - with cause of death "enteritis, hypostatic pneumonia".
The informant on William's death registration is his son Charles who records his name as "Charles W Wagg". He records his father's name as William Webb Wagg, age as 77 with 60 years in "the colonies", born in Yarmouth, Norwich, England with father William Wagg (mother unnamed).
Recently, I've located a SMH death notice inserted by Sarah which reads-
"WAGG.-January 8, at his residence, 54 Blue's Point-rod, William Webb Wagg, husband of Sarah Wagg, late of Norwich, England, aged 79 years. Home papers please copy."
This is very important for tracing William's birth family as it's indicating that the notice is to appear in the papers in Norwich, England where William still has family connections.
It seems to me that "our William" was born about 1826 in Norwich and came to Australia about 1845.
At this point, we've only found one probable arrival in Australia that seems to fit...
William Wagg arrived as a convict in VDL in 1845, about the right age, didn't report for the muster in Launceston in 1849 and no record of him after that date.
Did William jump on a ship in VDL and sail around the Pacific in the early 1850s calling into Sydney on a number of occasions and meeting Sarah?
Or did William leave Yarmouth as a young sailor about 1845 and then decide to settle in Sydney and marry Sarah about 1853?
We still need to answer these questions - difficult as shipping records showing crew are impossible to find!
The search continues........
