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 this: 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 explains how that question was finally answered. Connecting through Ancestry In early 2017, while this investigation was underway, I connected on 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 in person. At that meeting, she shared two original documents that had been carefully preserved through successive generations of what I now think of as “the Williams” — the repeated use of William reflecting the continuity of the family line. I was able to examine both documents firsthand. While they do not answer every question about William’s origins, they provide something equally important: direct evidence sho...

Most days I review the "significant events" that have happened around that date on my ever growing family history data base!  Today was the day to take a closer look at Oliver William Trickett.... Oliver will be know to some of our cousins as he married Shirley Prince in 1955 in North Sydney.  Shirley was the daughter of Violet Manning Prince (nee Webb),  grand-daughter of Chris Webb and great-granddaughter of William Webb Wagg and his wife Sarah Turner.   Here's a pedigree chart for Shirley from my tree on ancestry.com.au. Sarah Webb (nee Turner's) sister, Jane, married John Trickett.  We know that the Webb Wagg and Trickett families were close.  Their children were baptised on the same day at St Thomas's North Sydney many times, Webb Waggs are informants on Trickett death registrations and vice versa and, as in this case, witnesses at marriages.  Here's the parish register from Christ Church Lavender Bay.  It records the wedding ...

I've previously written about our search for the birth family of our patriarch, William Webb Wagg.  As we approach Mother's Day, it's timely to look at the birth family of our matriarch, Sarah Turner. The first clue is in the 1853 marriage registration of William Wagg and Sarah Turner at St James, Sydney.  We see the witnesses named as George Fairfield of Sussex Street and Jane Turner of George Street. Sarah's 1918 death registration records the names of her parents as George Turner (a shipwright) and Sarah.  The witnesses to the death registration are Sarah's sons, William Webb Wagg and Charles Webb Wagg.  They record Sarah's age as 86 - birth around 1832 in Sydney. As Sarah's birth was so early in the colonies history, there are no birth registrations.  However, we've found a baptism transcript for Sarah Turner at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.  It records that Sarah was born on 21 October 1932 and baptised on 09 December 1832.  Her father...