Finding the father of Beatrice Worrie
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. Taken together with the documentary context, the most defensible explanation is that Beatrice was the daughter of Charles Webb Wagg, and that his brothers were her biological uncles.
What follows sets out the historical background, the DNA evidence, and the reasoning behind that conclusion, presented transparently so that descendants can see not only what is concluded, but why.
When the records fall silent — and DNA steps in
Beatrice Ruby May Worrie was born on 8 December 1891 at Glebe Street, Glebe, in inner Sydney. Her New South Wales birth registration records her as the daughter of Sophia Worrie, aged 22, born in Wollongong, New South Wales. Sophia was the informant for the birth and was living at 36 Glebe Street at the time. [1]
One feature of Beatrice’s birth record reflects both the registration practices and the language of the late nineteenth century. In the section of the certificate where a father’s name would usually appear, no paternal details are recorded. Instead, the word “illegitimate” is written on the certificate. No father’s name, occupation, age, or birthplace is given, and there is no later amendment to the entry.
In all other respects, the registration is clear and consistent. It establishes when and where Beatrice was born, identifies her mother beyond doubt, and places the family in Glebe at the end of 1891. The terminology used on the certificate was a legal descriptor of status at the time, rather than a statement about Beatrice herself or the family life she experienced.
Inner-city suburbs such as Glebe were home to many young women working independently in domestic service and other forms of employment. Some raised children outside marriage, and in those circumstances it was common for birth registrations to record only the mother’s details, using language that reflected contemporary law and custom. The wording on Beatrice’s birth record is best understood within this broader historical context.
Approximately sixteen months later, Sophia had a second child, and from this point the documentary record becomes more complex. A New South Wales birth registration dated 9 April 1893 records the birth of Claude Edward Jones, again in Glebe—the same suburb recorded for Beatrice—with the address given as Christie Street, Glebe. [2]
In this registration, Solomon Jones is named as the father and the child is registered under the surname Jones. The entry also states that the parents were married at Bega on 10 May 1891, a date that predates Beatrice’s birth by seven months. Claude’s mother is recorded as Sophia Jane Warrington. The surname Warrington does not otherwise appear in connection with Sophia and may represent a phonetic or clerical rendering of Worrie. Other contemporary and later records consistently support the conclusion that Claude was the son of Sophia Worrie, and his parentage is well supported by documentary evidence, although it has not been independently confirmed through DNA testing.
The inconsistencies in this registration relate not to the identification of the parents themselves, but to the additional contextual details supplied. There is no evidence that Sophia and Solomon married in Bega in 1891; their confirmed marriage took place in 1896 at Berry, New South Wales. Taken together, this suggests that while the registration reflects the correct family unit, some elements—particularly marital status and naming—were either assumed or inaccurately recorded at the time. [3]
What the two registrations do share is place. Both children were born in Glebe within a relatively short period, placing Sophia in the same inner-Sydney environment during the early 1890s. The contrast between the two registrations—one explicitly recording the absence of a father, the other naming a father within a conventional family framework—illustrates the flexibility, and occasional imprecision, of birth registration practices in this period, particularly where personal circumstances were evolving.
Several years later, Sophia’s life moved into a more settled phase. In 1896, she married Solomon Jones at Berry. The marriage was registered and solemnised according to the rites of the Church of England. The record describes Sophia as a spinster and dressmaker, and Solomon Jones as a labourer. By this time, the family had relocated from inner Sydney and was living in the Shoalhaven district. [3]
That marriage did not alter the original birth registrations of either child. Beatrice was four years old and her younger sibling had already been born by the time Sophia married Solomon. As was typical of the period, later marriage did not result in retrospective changes to earlier birth records.
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| Image of Beatrice and William's 1917 marriage from Ancestry.com |
When Beatrice married as an adult, the marriage record reflects the family context in which she had grown up and understood her identity. On 2 November 1917, Beatrice Ruby May Jones married William Henry Uren at St Luke’s Church, Gulgong. She was recorded as aged 25, born at North Sydney, and usually resident in North Sydney, with her occupation given as domestic. William was recorded as a 41-year-old miner, born at Cadia, New South Wales, and residing in Orange. [4] The age recorded for William understated his true age; his birth was registered in Orange in 1866, indicating that his age was closer to 51. [5]
In the same marriage record, Beatrice is described as the daughter of Solomon Jones, labourer, and Mary Jane Worrie. This reflects the family structure Beatrice knew and presented at the time of her marriage. It provides valuable social and personal context, while also reminding us that marriage records capture lived family relationships rather than necessarily recording the circumstances of a person’s birth.
Following their marriage, Beatrice and William made their home primarily in Orange, where they raised a large family over the next two decades.
Their children included:
William John Henry Uren (1913–1943)
John Harold Uren (1915–1989)
Thomas Claude Uren (1917–1994)
George Alexander Uren (1920–1986)
James Charles Uren (1922–1970)
Henry William Uren (c.1927–1950)
Mary Harriet Sophia Uren (c.1930–2001)
Living Uren (c.1930– )
Through her children and grandchildren, Beatrice became part of a wide extended family whose members lived across New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. It is through these later generations that additional sources of information—including DNA—are now available.
Taken together, the historical records provide a clear outline of Beatrice’s life: her birth and early circumstances, her family environment, her marriage, and the family she and William created together. What those records do not do is identify her biological father at the time of her birth—a detail that was not recorded and may not have been considered appropriate or necessary to include in 1891.
For descendants today, DNA offers a way to explore this earlier part of Beatrice’s story with care and respect. It does not replace the life she lived or the family relationships she knew and valued. Instead, it adds an additional layer of understanding, made possible by the many generations who came after her.
It is with that perspective—and with respect for all involved—that the DNA evidence is considered.
A brief note on how DNA is used in this analysis
Historical records do not always capture every aspect of a person’s life, particularly in the nineteenth century. When a parent is not named, DNA provides another way to explore family connections, using information preserved within later generations.
This analysis draws primarily on DNA test results from AncestryDNA, using shared matches to identify groups of people who share DNA with one another and therefore descend from a common ancestor. Where available, Enhanced Shared Matching was used to identify more distant connections within the broader family network. BanyanDNA was then used as a validation tool to assess whether the observed DNA sharing was consistent with different proposed relationship structures.
When interpreting DNA matches, it is not just the presence of shared DNA that matters, but how much DNA is shared—and whether that amount makes sense for a particular relationship across generations. In this analysis, observed shared DNA is compared with expected shared DNA ranges for particular relationships, allowing different scenarios to be assessed in a structured and transparent way.
About centimorgans (cM): A centimorgan is a unit used to measure how much DNA two people share. Close relatives tend to share more centimorgans, while more distant relatives share less. Because inheritance varies, each relationship category has a range of expected shared cM values rather than a single fixed number.
Turning to DNA
In this case, the DNA evidence first came to light in an unexpected way. I, along with several known cousins who descend from William Webb Wagg and Sarah Turner, noticed that we shared a group of DNA matches who clearly belonged within our wider genetic network—yet could not be identified as descendants of any of that couple’s known children. Our Webb Wagg–Turner line is well researched, and the absence of a documentary connection suggested these matches were not simply the result of missing or overlooked records.
Rather than setting them aside, I explored how they might fit within the broader family tree. By reviewing the family trees attached to their DNA results and examining how these matches related to one another, a consistent pattern began to emerge. The same group of matches repeatedly converged on a single ancestral couple: Beatrice and her husband, William Uren.
The first chart illustrates the starting point of this pattern. It shows the descendants of William and Sarah Webb Wagg who have tested at AncestryDNA, highlighted in yellow. With one exception—Pauline, a 3× great-grandchild included for completeness—all of these testers share autosomal DNA with one or more descendants of Beatrice and William Uren. What matters is not any single match, but the repetition of this pattern across multiple independent branches and generations of the Webb Wagg–Turner family.
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| Descendants of William and Sarah (Turner) Webb Wagg who have tested at AncestryDNA (highlighted), illustrating the repeated pattern of shared matches with descendants of Beatrice Worrie, with one documented exception. |
The second chart shows the same pattern from the opposite direction. It illustrates the descendants of Beatrice and William Uren who share DNA with Webb Wagg–Turner descendants. Individuals highlighted in orange represent matches tested at AncestryDNA, the individual shown in yellow has tested at MyHeritage, and the individual shown in green has tested at 23andMe. Although these testers sit in different branches of Beatrice’s family and across different testing platforms, they all share DNA with at least one descendant of William and Sarah Webb Wagg.
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| Descendants of Beatrice and William Uren who share DNA with descendants of William and Sarah (Turner) Webb Wagg, shown across multiple testing platforms, illustrating a consistent pattern of shared ancestry. |
Viewed together, these independent connections indicate that the shared DNA does not arise from any single child or descendant line, but from a common ancestor shared by them all. The next step, therefore, was to determine whether this shared DNA was inherited through Beatrice or through her husband, William Uren.
Tracing the source of the shared DNA
To determine whether the shared DNA observed among these matches derived from Beatrice herself or from her husband, William Uren, I returned first to the documentary record.
As discussed earlier, Beatrice’s birth registration does not name a father. While this omission leaves an important question unanswered, it also means that her paternal ancestry remains entirely open and cannot be excluded on documentary grounds alone.
William Uren’s birth registration, by contrast, is complete. Born in 1866, with his birth registered at Orange, he is recorded as the son of William H. Uren and Mary A. Uren. His family line can therefore be traced confidently through conventional records and does not present the same uncertainty as Beatrice’s.[5]
This distinction made it possible to use William’s documented ancestry as a reference point when assessing the DNA evidence. The next step was therefore to examine whether the shared DNA observed among Beatrice’s descendants could be explained through William’s family, or whether it pointed elsewhere.
To do this, I contacted DNA matches who descend from Beatrice and William Uren to ask whether they would be willing to share their AncestryDNA match lists so the analysis could be taken further. One such match was Robert (shown in the chart above), whose daughter had also tested at AncestryDNA and generously shared her match list with me.
Separating the known lines
Analysis of her match list confirmed that William Uren’s side of the family was represented among her DNA results. A small number of matches could be placed within William’s extended Uren family, exactly as expected if William was her biological grandfather.
In addition, matches could be identified descending from Sophia Worrie through her later marriage to Solomon Jones, consistent with half-relationships within Beatrice’s known maternal family. These findings confirmed that the DNA inherited through Beatrice’s mother could be accounted for within documented family lines.
Notably, however, these Uren- and Worrie-related matches formed distinct and separate clusters. They did not overlap with the particular group of shared matches that repeatedly appeared across multiple descendants in the earlier Webb Wagg–Turner cluster.
No matches could be confidently placed within the wider Worrie or Jones families. This is not unexpected at this generational depth. Relationships to Worrie cousins would be relatively distant, and matches from the Jones family would not necessarily be expected if Solomon Jones was not Beatrice’s biological father — which remained the working hypothesis at this stage of the analysis.
Taken together, these findings point away from William Uren as the source of the unexplained shared DNA and towards Beatrice herself. Her maternal ancestry is known and well documented, and the DNA matches attributable to that line could be identified and accounted for. The remaining shared DNA therefore most plausibly derives from Beatrice’s unidentified paternal line.
Establishing the Webb Wagg–Turner connection
As illustrated in the following chart, the unexplained shared matches consistently connect Beatrice’s descendants to the family of William and Sarah (Turner) Webb Wagg.
Autosomal DNA shared between descendants of Beatrice Worrie and descendants of William and Sarah Webb Wagg, by generation
Inclusion rule:
This table includes only descendants of Beatrice Worrie who share autosomal DNA with one or more descendants of William and Sarah Webb Wagg.
How to read the table:
n = number of matching testers in that group
cM range = observed minimum–maximum shared centimorgans
“—” indicates no qualifying matches observed at that generational level
| Beatrice descendant | William & Sarah’s great-grandchildren (4 testers) | William & Sarah’s 2× great-grandchildren (13 testers) | William & Sarah’s 3× great-grandchildren (4 testers) | William & Sarah’s 4× great-grandchild (1 tester) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helen – GC | n=4, 125–188 cM | n=10, 29–108 cM | n=3, 25–46 cM | n=1, 23 cM |
| Robert – GC | n=4, 64–162 cM | n=13, 13–135 cM | n=3, 26–42 cM | n=1, 25 cM |
| Bee – GGC | n=4, 62–199 cM | n=10, 13–124 cM | n=1, 33 cM | — |
| Danielle – GGC | n=3, 18–25 cM | n=1, 12–12 cM | n=3, 8–21 cM | — |
| Diane – GGC | n=4, 69–148 cM | n=4, 19–50 cM | n=8, 10–142 cM | — |
| Jessica – 2GGC | n=3, 13–51 cM | n=2, 10–29 cM | n=2, 10–29 cM | — |
| Georgie – 2GGC | n=3, 25–35 cM | n=6, 13–32 cM | n=1, 27 cM | — |
| Jacob – 2GGC | n=1, 52 cM | n=5, 12–37 cM | n=1, 23 cM | — |
| Caitlin – 2GGC | n=3, 11–23 cM | — | — | — |
What matters here is not any single match, but the repetition of the pattern. Multiple independent descendants of William and Sarah — across different children, branches, and generations — share DNA with multiple descendants of Beatrice. This distribution cannot be explained by inheritance through a single child or line. Instead, it is consistent with inheritance from a common ancestor, shared across the wider family network.
For transparency, the full AncestryDNA shared-match dataset underpinning this analysis is provided as a downloadable PDF (link below).
Extending the analysis beyond the immediate family
Having identified consistent DNA connections between Beatrice’s descendants and the immediate descendants of William and Sarah Webb Wagg, the next step was to examine whether similar connections could be observed within the extended Webb Wagg (Wegg) family.
This stage of the analysis is necessarily more constrained. I do not have access to the full match lists of any descendants of Beatrice other than Robert’s daughter, nor to full match lists for descendants of William Webb Wagg’s siblings or cousins. In addition, the relationships involved are more distant, reducing the likelihood that shared DNA will be inherited and detected in every line.
Despite these limitations, AncestryDNA’s Enhanced Shared Matching tool makes it possible to identify indirect connections by revealing shared matches who link both groups to the same ancestral network. Using this approach, I was able to observe only those matches where individuals in both groups shared 20 centimorgans (cM) or more, a threshold that is informative at this generational distance.
The chart below shows the relevant branch of the Wegg family (William Webb Wagg was born Wegg; his father is highlighted in red). Descendants of the Wegg family who share DNA with Beatrice’s descendants are shown in orange.
The table below summarises the shared DNA I was able to identify between descendants of Beatrice and members of the extended Wegg family. Although this dataset is necessarily incomplete, it provides further corroboration. The DNA connections observed earlier are not confined to William and Sarah’s direct descendants but extend into the wider Wegg family network.
Shared autosomal DNA (cM) between Beatrice’s descendants and extended Wegg descendants
How to read this table
Rows are grouped by Beatrice’s generation
Columns represent descendants of the extended Wegg family
Values show shared centimorgans (cM)
Blank cells indicate no shared DNA identified at ≥20 cM using enhanced shared matching
| Peter | Michael | Heather | John | Zephora | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beatrice’s descendants | |||||
| Grandchildren | |||||
| Helen | - | 40 | - | - | - |
| Robert | - | - | - | 21 | - |
| Great-grandchildren | |||||
| Bee | 32 | - | 26 | - | 24 |
| Diane | - | - | 28 |
Independent confirmation through the Turner line
The analysis was further strengthened by examining the Turner family, independent of the Wegg line.
Documentary records show that Sarah Turner had one known sibling, Jane Turner. While little is known about their parents’ wider families, one of Jane Turner’s great-grandchildren, Maureen, has tested at AncestryDNA. Although she descends from Sarah’s sister rather than from Sarah herself, her results provide an independent test of the Turner connection.
The chart below shows modest but consistent DNA sharing between Maureen and four descendants of Beatrice Worrie. The amounts involved are exactly what would be expected at this genealogical distance and, crucially, they sit in the correct position within the family tree.
These matches link Beatrice’s descendants not only to the Wegg line but also to the broader Turner family, through both sisters, Sarah and Jane.
Taken together, the evidence completes the structural framework of the case. No single shared match within the extended Wegg or Turner lines is decisive on its own. However, the combined pattern provides the corroboration needed to conclude that Beatrice’s father was a descendant of William Webb Wagg and Sarah (Turner) Webb Wagg.
Narrowing the field: which son?
William Webb Wagg (born Wegg) and his wife, Sarah Turner, established a large family in Sydney during the second half of the nineteenth century. William was born in Norwich, Norfolk, in 1826 and was transported to Van Diemen’s Land in 1845. He later settled in New South Wales and married Sarah Turner at St James’ Church of England, Sydney, in 1853. Sarah, born in Sydney in 1832, would outlive her husband by more than a decade, dying in 1918 at the age of 85. Together, they raised a family that became well established on Sydney’s Lower North Shore.
Four of their sons survived to adulthood, married, and established families of their own. These sons form the critical generation for the analysis that follows.
The eldest surviving son, Charles “Charlie” Webb-Wagg, was born in 1862. He married Amy Agnes Clancy in Sydney in 1893, and the family later settled in Chatswood. Charles lived into his seventies, dying in 1939. Although his family line continued socially through later generations, there are no living descendants of Charles and Amy who are able to contribute DNA evidence to this analysis.
Christopher Henry “Chris” Webb, born in 1866 at Blues Point, married Ellen Eliza Rogers in Redfern in 1892. The family later resided in Mosman, and Christopher lived to the age of 81, dying in 1948. His line is well represented among later generations, with five descendants contributing DNA results through AncestryDNA.
Albert Hayden Webb Wagg, known as Hayden, was born in 1870, also at Blues Point. He married Josephine Clancy in 1895 at St Thomas’ Church of England, North Sydney. Albert and Josephine remained closely associated with the Mosman area throughout their lives. Albert lived to the age of 80, dying in 1950, and his line is well represented among present-day testers, with six descendants contributing DNA results through AncestryDNA.
The youngest son to reach adulthood was William John “Bill” Webb Wagg, born in 1873. He married Ethel Adeline Swanson in 1895 and lived primarily on the Lower North Shore. Although his life was shorter than that of his brothers—he died in 1933 at the age of 60—his descendants nonetheless form another significant branch of the family, with two descendants contributing DNA results through AncestryDNA.
For simplicity, these four sons are referred to from this point onward as Charlie, Chris, Hayden, and Bill.
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| Clockwise from top left - Charlie, Chris, Hayden and Bill |
Documentary context at the time of Beatrice’s birth
These four sons represent the principal male lines descending from William and Sarah Webb Wagg. All survived to adulthood, married, and established families of their own. However, not all of these lines are equally represented in the available DNA evidence. In particular, the absence of living biological descendants from Charlie’s line necessarily limits the extent to which that branch can be assessed genetically.
Turning first to the documentary context, Beatrice was born in Sydney in December 1891. Early 1891 is therefore the relevant period during which her father would have had contact with Sophia Worrie, who was herself likely living in Sydney at that time.
During this period, all four sons were living on the Lower North Shore and were unmarried. Their ages at the beginning of 1891 fell within a relatively narrow range: Charlie was twenty-eight, Chris twenty-four, Hayden twenty, and Bill eighteen. Beatrice’s mother, Sophia Worrie, was twenty-one.
All four sons were employed either by Sydney Ferries or by other businesses connected with Sydney Harbour, placing them in broadly similar geographic and social environments. There is, however, no documentary evidence of any direct association between any of the sons and Sophia Worrie, nor with her future husband, Solomon Jones, during this period. On documentary grounds alone, none of the four can be excluded, although age and circumstance suggest that one of the older sons may be the more likely candidate.
An intriguing question is whether Beatrice herself knew the Webb Wagg family. This may never be answered directly. The Webb Wagg family had lived in North Sydney from the 1870s, and it is therefore notable that when Beatrice married in 1917 she recorded North Sydney as both her place of birth and her usual residence, despite having been born in Glebe. She also recorded her occupation as domestic.
By contrast, the Jones–Worrie family moved from Sydney to the South Coast in the mid-1890s and did not return to Sydney until around 1910, settling in the southern suburbs. There is no known documentary connection between the Jones–Worrie family and North Sydney during Beatrice’s childhood. While this discrepancy cannot be explained definitively, it adds an additional layer of contextual interest to Beatrice’s later self-identification.
One further observation concerns the naming of Sophia’s second child, Claude Edward Jones, born in Glebe on 9 April 1893. Just weeks earlier, on 30 January 1893, Charlie Webb Wagg had married Amy Clancy, and their only child was born on 6 August 1893, named Claude William Webb Wagg. By the time Claude Jones enlisted in the First World War, he was using William as his second given name, and it appears consistently in documents thereafter.
While William was a name used repeatedly within the Webb Wagg family, it does not appear as a family name in either the Worrie or Jones families. Likewise, Claude was not a family name in either family. Whether this overlap represents coincidence or something more cannot be determined from names alone, but it is a detail that warrants note within the broader context of the investigation.
Moving from family placement to individual assessment
At this point, the analysis shifts from establishing where Beatrice’s father belonged to determining which branch of the Webb Wagg family best accounts for the observed DNA patterns.
The DNA evidence has already established a clear structural conclusion: Beatrice’s biological father belonged within the descendant network of William and Sarah Webb Wagg. The remaining task was to assess how well each son’s line fits the observed genetic data.
Assessing the sons using BanyanDNA and structured DNA comparison
By this stage of the investigation, the DNA evidence had established a clear structural conclusion: Beatrice’s biological father belonged within the descendant network of William and Sarah Webb Wagg. The remaining task was to determine which branch of that family best accounted for the observed DNA patterns.
Using BanyanDNA as a validation tool
Given the number of DNA testers available on the Webb Wagg–Turner line, and the corresponding matches identified among descendants of Beatrice and William Uren, I next turned to BanyanDNA to assess whether the observed autosomal DNA sharing was genetically compatible with different paternal scenarios.
BanyanDNA is a statistical tool designed for genetic genealogy. Its validation feature does not rank competing hypotheses or select a single “best” answer. Instead, it evaluates whether the observed DNA sharing between testers is consistent with a proposed family relationship structure, based on expected inheritance patterns across multiple generations.
Using this validation approach, I assessed four scenarios: that Beatrice’s father was Charlie, Chris, Hayden, or Bill.
All four scenarios could be modelled within BanyanDNA. However, an important limitation applied. Because there are no living biological descendants of Charlie and his wife Amy, Charlie’s line could only be assessed indirectly, through its relationship to the other sibling lines rather than through direct descendant data. This necessarily reduced BanyanDNA’s ability to discriminate between the scenarios.
When assessed using the validation feature, none of the four scenarios could be excluded, and none emerged as clearly implausible. This outcome is consistent with the structure of the available data: where multiple candidates are siblings and one line lacks direct genetic representation, statistical modelling alone may not resolve the question.
Although BanyanDNA did not produce a decisive result, it served an important purpose. It confirmed that the observed DNA evidence was compatible with all four paternal scenarios and indicated that further resolution would need to come from a closer examination of shared-match patterns, centimorgan distributions across independent descendant lines, and historical context.
For that reason, the analysis returned to the DNA evidence itself, examined in a more granular and comparative way.
Comparing the sons using structured DNA tables
To refine the analysis, I constructed three structured comparison tables, each focused on one son of William and Sarah Webb Wagg whose descendant line is represented among present-day DNA testers: Hayden, Chris, and Bill. Charlie is necessarily absent from these tables because there are no living biological descendants of his line available for testing.
Each table follows the same structure and analytical framework, allowing the results to be compared directly across branches.
Down the left-hand side of each table are the descendants of Beatrice who have tested, grouped by generation (grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and 2× great-grandchildren). Across the top are the tested descendants of one of William and Sarah’s sons, grouped by their generation relative to that son. For each pairing, the observed shared autosomal DNA is shown in centimorgans (cM).
Each table is divided horizontally into two interpretive halves representing alternative scenarios:
Upper half: assumes the son under consideration was Beatrice’s father
Lower half: assumes the son under consideration was Beatrice’s uncle (that is, Beatrice descended from one of his brothers)
For each scenario, the expected relationship between the testers is shown, together with the expected range of shared centimorgans drawn from the Shared cM Project. These ranges provide a comparative framework against which the observed values can be assessed.
The strength of this approach lies not in any single shared match, but in the overall pattern observed across multiple independent testers and across several generational levels. It is this consistency—or lack of it—across the tables that allows the relative plausibility of each paternal scenario to be evaluated.
What the three tables show
Albert (Hayden) Webb Wagg — Table 1
The table comparing Beatrice’s descendants with those of Hayden shows clear and repeated DNA sharing across multiple testers and generations. However, when the observed centimorgan values are assessed against the expected ranges, the overall pattern aligns more comfortably when Hayden is treated as Beatrice’s uncle rather than her father.
Under the father scenario, several shared cM values sit toward the lower edge of the expected ranges across multiple relationships. When modelled as an avuncular relationship, the same values fall closer to the midpoint of the expected ranges and show a more consistent generational progression. Taken together, the data supports Hayden as a close paternal relative, but more strongly as an uncle than as a direct parent.
Christopher (Chris) Webb — Table 2
The comparison with Chris’s descendants likewise reveals shared DNA with Beatrice’s descendants, confirming a biological connection within the same extended family. However, the pattern is generally weaker and less extensive than that observed for Hayden.
Here again, the distribution of shared centimorgan values fits more readily with an uncle-level relationship. The data does not support Chris as the most likely direct paternal line.
William (Bill) Webb Wagg — Table 3
The table comparing Beatrice’s descendants with those of Bill shows a similar profile. Shared DNA is clearly present, confirming a familial connection, but the levels and generational patterns are more consistent with an uncle-level relationship than with inheritance from a father.
Drawing the strands together
Taken together, the three tables point to a consistent interpretation. The observed autosomal DNA sharing behaves as though Chris, Hayden, and Bill are part of Beatrice’s paternal family network, but more plausibly as biological unclesrather than as her father.
That leaves Charlie.
This conclusion does not rest on Charlie having the strongest direct DNA signal—indeed, his line cannot be tested directly. Instead, it rests on a process of elimination grounded in structure and pattern.
If the DNA evidence establishes that Beatrice’s father belongs within the descendant network of William and Sarah Webb Wagg, and the tested lines of Chris, Hayden, and Bill consistently fit better as avuncular rather than paternal relationships, then the only remaining explanation within the sibling group is Charlie—another son of William and Sarah who was of the right age, in the right place, and unmarried at the relevant time.
In this sense, the DNA evidence does not “prove Charlie” directly. Rather, it places Beatrice firmly within the Webb Wagg–Turner family and shows that the tested sons fit better as collateral relatives. On the balance of probabilities, and taking the documentary context into account, the most defensible conclusion is that Charlie was Beatrice’s biological father, and that Chris, Hayden, and Bill were her biological uncles.
This conclusion is appropriately cautious, acknowledging both the absence of direct descendant DNA from Charlie’s line and the limitations of historical records. At the same time, it is well supported, resting on replicated DNA patterns across multiple independent testers and a structured comparison of alternative paternal scenarios.
For descendants reading this today, what matters most is not simply the identification of a biological father, but the fuller understanding it brings to Beatrice’s story. The DNA evidence does not change the family Beatrice knew, the life she lived, or the relationships she valued. Instead, it adds an earlier chapter that was never written down at the time.
While the records left Beatrice’s story incomplete, the combined documentary and DNA evidence now places her, on the balance of probabilities, as the daughter of Charles Webb Wagg within a wider and well-documented family network.
Invitation to collaborate
If you are a descendant of Beatrice, or of the broader Webb Wagg or Turner families, and you have tested with AncestryDNA, you may be able to help extend or confirm this work. Even a brief look at shared matches can add valuable context, particularly where multiple independent lines are involved. If you would be willing to share your AncestryDNA match list, or simply to discuss how you connect to these families, I would be very pleased to hear from you.
Family history is always a collaborative effort. This analysis has only been possible because so many descendants chose to test and to share their information. Any further contributions will be treated with care, respect, and discretion, and may help ensure that Beatrice’s story—and the stories of the families connected to hers—can be told as fully and accurately as possible.
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[1] New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, birth registration 13371/1892, Beatrice M Worrie, born Glebe, New South Wales; mother Sophia.
[2] New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, birth registration 13799/1893, Claude Edward Jones, born Glebe, New South Wales; parents Solomon Jones and Sophia Jane Warrington.
[3] New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, marriage registration, 7022/1896, Sophia Worrie and Solomon Jones, Berry, New South Wales.
[4] New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, marriage registration 11011/1917, Beatrice R. H. Jones and William H. Uren, Gulgong, New South Wales.
[5] New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, birth registration 12409/1866, William Henry Uren, born New South Wales; father William H. Uren, mother Mary A. Uren.
