Woodham family - Wiltshire 1800s - completely disappears

[dtcoulson]

Absolutely stunning piece of research, JM. You have thoroughly convinced me against the opinion I held right up to the moment I started reading your post!

Clearly I've been picking up mistaken data, and there is no question that checking original documents is essential.

The info I had on the birth of William Woodham in Wiltshire in 1798 also turned out to be a misread: William Woodman.

So... one last question before I completely give up on the Australia theory:
Is absence of evidence evidence of absence? In other words, are the records of convicts arriving in Australia complete so that we can be sure that everyone has been accounted for? I thought that the records had gaps, as is the case with just about all archives we look at.

If we let the Australia theory go, and it looks as though that is the proper thing to do, then we are right back at the beginning.

Anyway, thanks for being very thorough on this Australia matter, JM.
It's important to me that we get the story right.

-DC

[groom]

Well done, JM on ruling out that William "Woodham" the dates did seem a bit tight.

[majm]

You could check IF he was transported to Van Diemen's Land :
https://www.linc.tas.gov.au/family-history/Pages/Convict-life.aspx
and of course
RChat's own resources board for Tasmania (formerly the penal colony of Van Diemen's Land) :
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/australia-resources-offers/
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=369953.0


JM

[majm]

So... one last question before I completely give up on the Australia theory:
Is absence of evidence evidence of absence? In other words, are the records of convicts arriving in Australia complete so that we can be sure that everyone has been accounted for? I thought that the records had gaps, as is the case with just about all archives we look at.
.....
It's important to me that we get the story right.

Yes and Yes.   If your chap was transported to the penal colony of New South Wales 1825-1835 he was NOT using the name William WOODHAM.   Ancestry and Find My Past have commercial partnerships with NSW State Archives and are uploading digitised images of SOME of the Archives.  HOWEVER, NSW State Archives online indexes have decades of quality volunteering with old fashioned teams of experienced transcribers checking and double checking and at times checking five and six times before releasing any particular index, and when still in doubt it will be indexed under ALL possible interpretations. 

I have no first hand knowledge of how the Tasmanian indexes were prepared.  I have both first hand knowledge as a volunteer and second hand knowledge as a sibling and as a cousin to Archivists re how NSW State Archives indexes work.

JM

[Ruskie]

(I've been dipping in and out of this topic as I found it interesting) - I would just like to say what excellent thorough sleuthing JM. Great stuff!

[dtcoulson]

Got that, JM.
Just having a look now. The name index does not have a William Woodham.

Cheers
-DC

[dtcoulson]

That pretty much nails it, then, JM.
William Woodham did not go to Australia
(unless... extraordinary effort made to hide himself etc etc which is all improbable).

BTW I was not questioning the skill and dedication of the transcribers (who I 'm sure are all wonderful people) but rather asking whether records from that period in history had failed to survive to the present day. Sounds like you folks could show the Americans a thing or two about quality control in their election.   

The only clue that suggested a journey to Australia was the word 'transported' on the birth record of a relative. It's time to re-evaluate what that could mean.

[1]
The phrase  "husband transported,not father of child" appears on the birth record of James Woodham March 10 1833 in Easton Royal, Wiltshire. Mother listed as Elizabeth Woodham, father listed as William Woodham. So is William the husband or the father? The remark implies he cannot be both. Maybe we are wrong in reading this to mean that William was the one transported.

[2]
'Transported' could simply mean 'taken away'.
There is that evidence that he was imprisoned for a year in 1829.
However, that makes it a little hard to see how he could have fathered a child in the same year.
Did we get the precise date on which he was imprisoned?
And did that prison statement state his age?
There was that suggestion that he was born in 1798. But did that come from the prison record?
I will have to look back through these notes.

Your continued support is welcome.

Cheers
David C

[majm]

Re 'transportation' and also

......
If 'transportation' did indeed occur then departure must have been between Jan 1829 and March 1833. Is there a list of ships for this period? It might be worth reading the logs of these journeys, if they exist.

The Antipodes penal colonies were NOT the only destinations for transporting those on sentences 'beyond the seas' ....     I had mentioned on the other thread Bermuda.   

We need to remember that Britain also sent convicts to Bermuda.   

http://convictvoyages.org/expert-essays/convicts-in-Bermuda 

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=531876.0

http://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/stories/convict-hulks

[groom]

Am I wrong in thinking that some prisoners who were sentenced to transportation, were sometimes not actually transported but spent time in the UK in prison or prison hulks? If this was the case with William, could he have been recorded as transported on the baptism from information given to the vicar by his wife or just as common knowledge, as they believed that was what was going to happen? He then wouldn't appear on any lists would he, apart from court ones here?