The William Webb Wagg Investigation (7)
Part 7: Testing the Cley baptism — Is George Horatio Wegg the right man?
In Part 6, the documentary and DNA evidence allowed us to extend the Wegg line two further generations. That work identified George Wegg, who married Susanna Wilkin in 1778, as the paternal great-grandfather of William Webb Wagg.
That conclusion gave us a firmer foundation. But it also opened the next question:
Can we identify the origins of George Wegg — and is he the same man as George Horatio Wegg, baptised at Cley next the Sea in 1761, son of Horatio and Mary Wegg?
This is not simply a matter of finding a promising baptism. It is a question of identity. Does the whole life of the man fit?
In Part 6, I noted that the Cley baptism was plausible by name, date and location, but that without direct linking evidence the connection had to remain provisional. That remains the starting point for this post. What follows is an attempt to test that possibility more carefully.
An unexpected lead
The investigation began with a simple web search for the distinctive name “George Horatio Wegg.”
Only one result appeared: a 2022 catalogue published by Bernard Quaritch Ltd, a long-established London antiquarian bookseller.
The catalogue described a finely bound eighteenth-century devotional volume bearing the names “Horatio Wegg” on the binding and “Mr G. H. Wegg” on an internal label. It also noted that this George Horatio Wegg appears to have lived in Norfolk in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. [1]
At first, this seemed like an interesting side reference. But it quickly raised a more important question.
The George Wegg already identified in our line married in 1778 and appears in a rural Norfolk context. The owner of this book, however, seems to belong to a different social world: literate, educated, and sufficiently well placed to own and preserve a finely bound devotional volume.
So the question sharpened. Are these two references pointing to the same man, or to two different men with similar names living in the same region?
The Cley candidate
The parish records provide an obvious candidate: George Horatio Wegg, baptised at Cley next the Sea in 1761, son of Horatio and Mary Wegg. [2]
On the surface, this is attractive. The name is distinctive. The date is close enough for a man marrying in 1778. Cley sits within the broader north Norfolk area in which the later Wegg family appears.
Chronology does not rule him out. If the baptised child is the same man who married Susanna Wilkin, he would have been about seventeen at marriage. Young, certainly, but not impossible.
Geography does not rule him out either. Cley next the Sea and Baconsthorpe, where George Wegg was later buried in 1852 are roughly 15 miles apart. In eighteenth-century terms that is a meaningful distance, but still well within the range of normal movement for work, marriage or opportunity.
So by name, date and place, the identification remains possible. But genealogy cannot rest on surface alignment alone.
The next question is whether the social and family context fits.
The family of Horatio and Mary Wegg
A key record is a notice published in The London Gazette on 24 December 1841. It relates to the estate of William Wegg, who died on 6 December 1827 at Quilon, in Travancore, in the East Indies. The notice called for creditors and next of kin to come forward before the Court of Chancery. [3]
Importantly, it states that William Wegg was the son of Horatio and Mary Wegg, both deceased, and had been born at Cley next the Sea. It also identifies George Horatio Wegg and Samuel Wegg as known next of kin.
This is valuable because it defines a family group. Horatio and Mary Wegg had sons including George Horatio, William and Samuel. It also places one son within the wider world of East India Company service and shows that the family’s affairs were significant enough to reach the Court of Chancery.
That impression is reinforced by contemporary death notices. In 1806, Horatio Wegg was described as “Gent.” and as a former merchant at Cley next the Sea who had served for nineteen years as land steward to the Earl of Orford. [4] In 1823, his widow Mary was described as the relict of Horatio Wegg, gentleman. [5]
These are not casual descriptions. They place Horatio firmly within the middling ranks of rural society: a merchant, a land steward, a gentleman, and a man trusted with property and administration.
What the manorial records add
To explore this family further, I used the FamilySearch full text search. This was particularly useful because it brought up references in manorial court records — records that often sit outside the usual indexed parish and civil collections.
Manorial court records can be especially valuable for family historians. They recorded transfers of copyhold land: land held according to the custom of the manor, with ownership and inheritance recorded in the court rolls. Where a family held this kind of property, the records can reveal relationships, inheritance arrangements, sales and the practical working out of wills.
For the Wegg family of Cley, these records are particularly revealing.
A manorial court record from 1785 shows Horatio Wegg, gentleman, acting as attorney in a property transaction. By that date he was not simply a name in a parish register. He was an established figure in Cley, literate, legally active and recognised within the local property system.
Later entries relating to his will provide the family structure in much greater detail. Horatio’s will was dated 17 November 1804, and he died around June 1806. His executors were John Wegg, Robert Wegg and William Forster, gentleman.
Horatio left his estate to his wife Mary for her lifetime. After her death, it was to be sold and divided among his sons:
- George Horatio Wegg
- John Wegg
- Robert Wegg
- William Wegg
- Samuel Wegg
The later manorial records show this process unfolding. The sons appear together, agreeing to the sale of property and taking part in formal legal transactions as heirs. The property included a copyhold cottage or messuage, a yard, garden and associated land in Cley next the Sea. One recorded sale of £300 suggests property of substantial value.
A deed from 1818 provides an especially clear snapshot. It names Mary Wegg, widow; John Wegg, gentleman; George Horatio Wegg, gentleman; Samuel Wegg, upholsterer; and William Wegg, in the Marine Service of the East India Company.
This single record draws together several important strands: the family’s status, their property interests, their occupations, and William’s East India Company connection. It also confirms that George Horatio Wegg was alive in 1818 and acting with his brothers in relation to the family estate.
Taken together, these records give us a much richer picture than parish registers alone could provide. This was a family with property, literacy, legal awareness and recognised social standing.
Does our George fit this family?
At this point, the Cley family is well defined. Within it sits George Horatio Wegg, son of Horatio and Mary, heir to family property and participant in estate administration.
The question is whether he is also the George Wegg who married Susanna Wilkin in 1778 and later appears in the line leading to William Webb Wagg.
There are some points in favour. The name is close. The chronology is possible. The geography is workable.
But when the wider life context is considered, the identification begins to weaken.
The Cley family appears repeatedly in formal records. Its members are described as gentlemen, merchants, land stewards, property holders and participants in legal transactions. George Horatio Wegg himself is named in 1818 as a gentleman and as one of the sons involved in the sale of family property.
By contrast, the George Wegg who married Susanna Wilkin does not appear in this network. He appears in parish records without any sign of status. He has no known connection to the Cley property transactions. He is not seen acting with Horatio’s sons. No record has yet linked him to Mary, John, Robert, William or Samuel Wegg.
That absence matters. If George Wegg of the 1778 marriage were the same man as George Horatio Wegg of Cley, we might expect at least one trace connecting him to this family’s property, inheritance or legal affairs. So far, none has been found.
Even the naming pattern gives pause. The name Horatio is prominent in the Cley family, yet it does not appear in the known descendants of George Wegg and Susanna Wilkin.
None of these points alone disproves the connection. But together they make the identification less convincing.
The unresolved piece
One part of the Cley story remains incomplete.
George Horatio Wegg was alive in 1818 and deceased by 1841, when the Chancery notice referred to known next of kin. Yet I have not identified a Norfolk burial for him. For a man of his apparent standing, that absence is notable.
It may suggest that he died outside the immediate locality, perhaps even outside Norfolk. That would not be surprising in this family context. His brother William served in the East India Company’s Marine Service and died in Travancore. This was a family with wider connections than a single Norfolk parish.
This unresolved death does not connect George Horatio Wegg to our George. If anything, it keeps the two lives distinct.
A conclusion on the balance of probabilities
The Cley baptism remains attractive at first glance. It offers the right name, at a plausible date, in a possible location.
But the fuller record tells a different story.
George Horatio Wegg of Cley belonged to a family of property, standing and legal visibility. His life is visible within that network. George Wegg, who married Susanna Wilkin in 1778, is not.
On the balance of probabilities, these were two different men: similar names, same broad region, same period, but different family and social contexts.
That conclusion may feel disappointing, but it is not a failure. It is a refinement.
We now have a clearer understanding of the Cley Wegg family, and we have avoided attaching our George to an attractive but unsupported baptism. That matters, because eliminating a tempting false lead is one of the most important parts of sound genealogical research.
The question remains:
If George Wegg did not come from this Cley family, where did he belong?
At this point, both the paper trail and the DNA evidence have taken us as far as they can for now. Rather than pointing to a clear next generation, the Wegg line has reached a new brick wall.
But it is a better-defined brick wall than the one we began with. We now know more clearly who George Wegg was not — and that matters. The task ahead is to keep testing the surrounding Wegg families, waiting for new records, new DNA matches, or a small piece of evidence that may eventually show where he truly belongs.
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[1] https://www.quaritch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Quaritch-Devotion-2022.pdf
[2] Norfolk Record Office (Norwich, Norfolk), Church of England parish registers for Cley, reference AT Cley, accessed through Ancestry’s database “Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600–1935” (Ancestry.com).
[3] London Gazette, 24 December 1841, notice to creditors of William Wegg.
[4] Norfolk Chronicle (Norwich, Norfolk, England), 25 January 1823, death notice of Mrs Wegg, relict of Horatio Wegg of Cley next the Sea; digital image, Findmypast image viewer.
[5] Norfolk Chronicle (Norwich, Norfolk, England), 9 July 1806, p. 3, death notice of Horatio Wegg of Cley next the Sea, gentleman, formerly a merchant and land steward to the Earl of Orford; digital image, Findmypast (https://www.findmypast.com.au/).
