William Ward's origins

I started this William Ward Story with his marriage, then worked back to his conviction in London before following him to the end of his sentence in Tasmania. Before I follow the story to Brisbane Water, I thought I should check his life in London before he was arrested and charged with theft.

Joan Taylor adopted (with caution) the theory that William was the son of William Ward and Ann Catherine. Her information was based on some research done in London by my parents. They consulted the Morman records in London and this was the only baptism that they could find around 1799. Other researched have subsequently found the marriage of Willian Ward and Ann Catherine Hennell.

I have seen another theory that William was the son of James Ward and Mary Preston. The places that quote this theory variously have the birth in 1793, 1799 and 1809. The 1793 date is based on the age shown on William's death certificate, the 1799 date is based on the age given at his trial and the 1809 date comes from a birth at Windsor NSW. I think it is from the William Ward born at Windsor in 1809 that the names of James and Mary Ward were found. I think we can easily debunk this James and Mary theory. Unfortunately is it now embedded in some of the online family history sites.

The details behind idea that William's parents were William and Ann Catherine can be reproduced and the baptism records are very clear and even give the date of birth. There is a thorough family history available for Ann Catherine Hennell, who descended from a famous family of London goldsmiths. But the evidence connecting our William to this baptism seems to me to be slim - just the timing and being named after his father.

Since I am double-checking everything, I decided to redo the search for births/baptisms in London around 1799. Based on some simple assumptions, and allowing for a bit of error in how old William thought he was, I searched for births in 1797, 1798, 1799 and 1800. So far I have identified 19 baptisms in London alone. A lot more old records are now available than in 1984 when my parents did the initial research in London!

I am going to do some more research on those 18 William Wards and see what I can find. I have already found that at least 8 were still in London in 1841 and are listed in the first census.

I will report back on my progress.