Forget William Ward and Ann Catherine Hennell?

 My big discovery this week is a negative one - that the the only remaining theory of our William Ward's parents is probably not true!

Building on what I said in my last post, we know from the convict records that our William was a chimney sweep in London before be was arrested and tried for theft of a shawl in 1816. Chimney sweeps were apprenticed at a young age and were almost always from poor families. It was not a sought-after occupation. The boys lived and worked in awful conditions and were not paid.

Up until now, we knew that Ann Catherine Hennell came from a family of successful goldsmiths. I was still working on the basis that she may have fallen out of favour with the family by marrying below her station.

Then this week I stumbled upon an ancestry.com hint that led me to the last will and testament of Ann Catherine's mother, Sussana Hennell nee Gee. The will names her children and the reference to her eldest daughter reads:

Ann Catherine Ward, wife of Willian Ward of the Stock Exchange London.

Ann Catherine had died before this will came into effect and the final paragraph, under the heading 'Proven' shows her as 'the late'.

This might provide a lot of clues to find out more about William Ward Snr, and perhaps track down what became of the child born in 1799, but I don't think this would advance the cause of my research any further.

In my opinion, this moves this couple into the highly improbable category in the search for William's parents.

A PDF copy of the will is now on my website. I have added a new resources section on the Ward page for this as a 'disproving' resource.