The Webb Wagg Family in Australia

Part 2: Where Did the “Webb Wagg” Name Come From? One of the most persistent questions in the Webb Wagg family has always been:  where did the name “Webb Wagg” come from? Why does “Webb” sometimes appear as a surname, sometimes as a given name, and sometimes not at all? This post explores how that question began to be answered — and why it remains only partially resolved. Connecting through Ancestry In  early 2017 , while this research was underway, I connected through  Ancestry  with a third cousin descended from  William Webb-Wagg (1873–1974) , a son of William and Sarah. After corresponding online, we arranged to meet. At that meeting, she shared two original documents that had been passed down through what I now think of as  “the Williams”  — successive generations bearing the name William. I was able to examine these documents in person at the time. While they do not answer every question about William’s origins, they do explain  how and when...

Part 1: Untangling Two Men of the Same Name Identifying the Correct Ancestor of the Webb Wagg Family Family history research often begins with a simple question —  who was this person?  Sometimes, however, the answer proves far more complex than expected. This post documents how a long-standing confusion surrounding my 2× great-grandfather,  William Webb Wagg , who died at North Sydney in 1905, was resolved. The analysis presented here reflects research undertaken between  2016 and 2017 , and builds on earlier work by my Webb Wagg cousin  Leonie . At the time, online family trees repeatedly conflated William with another man named William Wagg, collapsing two distinct lives into a single, inaccurate profile. It was Leonie’s early research that first identified these inconsistencies and prompted a closer, more systematic examination of the evidence. What follows traces how that initial work was tested, extended, and ultimately resolved through careful analysis of...

Executive summary This post examines one unresolved question in Beatrice Worrie’s life: the identity of her biological father. Nineteenth-century records do not name him, but DNA evidence from multiple descendants now allows that question to be explored with care and rigour. By analysing shared DNA patterns across independent descendant lines, and by testing competing paternal scenarios within the Webb Wagg–Turner family using structured comparison and genetic validation tools, it becomes possible to move beyond speculation. The DNA evidence establishes that Beatrice’s father was a descendant of William and Sarah (Turner) Webb Wagg. When the tested branches of their sons Christopher, Albert (Hayden), and William are examined in detail, each behaves consistently as an uncle-level relationship rather than as a direct paternal line. In the absence of living descendants from Charles Webb Wagg’s line, the conclusion rests on pattern, structure, and probability rather than direct proof. Take...