Hi Kirk,
The best records for this time period are the Tas. Colonial Secretary's Papers, but you will only occasionally find references to places of origin. Having a trawl around the internet it seems that others have already accessed these records for the PRESNELL family's applications for land grants. It also doesn't look like any of the headstones provide any useful information.
I must say that it is quite amusing to see how many people have joined the details of two families together to make one. It was
James PRESNELL who married Sarah TOOTH in Piddinghoe, Sussex and
Thomas PRESNELL who was having children with a Sarah in Essex. Some trees join all the children into one family and others have Thomas marrying Sarah TOOTH, just to make things "fit" better.
I personally cannot see how James and Sarah of Piddinghoe can be the originators of the Tas families. They married at Piddinghoe in 1765 and children shown as being baptised in Piddinghoe are Sarah (1767), Mary (1769), Thomas (1772), Jenny (1774), Elizabeth (1776), Phillis (1778), James (1780), and
Thomas Hugh (1782).
It would appear that the first Thomas died, but Thomas Hugh PRESNELL survived and married firstly in 1801 (bachelor of Piddinghoe) to Sarah GORRINGE. They had one child, James, in 1802. Thomas married secondly in 1808 (widower of Piddinghoe) to Charlotte HARRIS and they had a number of children. At least two of them, Harriet and Sarah, also married in Piddinghoe.
Sarah PRESNELL who died in Tas in 1823 after immigrating had at least four sons living there - Thomas, John, James and William. This Thomas married Martha DADGE in 1798 in London. The DADGE name was used by Tas. descendants. Clearly these two Thomas's are completely different people. Sarah's son Thomas was already in Tasmania when the Piddinghoe Thomas (son of James and Sarah) was still in Sussex having children.
I would suggest that the first thing you should do is spend some time with the Piddinghoe parish registers to see if James PRESNELL and Sarah TOOTH died there. That would surely disprove any connection between them and Tasmania.
The Oxfordshire connection is through Thomas PRESNELL and Martha DADGE. A quote:
"Thomas Presnell held the victualler's licence in the village of Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxon, from 1807 to 1819 before coming to Australia, free immigrant, in 1820 or 1821. According to the Victuallers' Cognizances which are on microfilm at the LDS, the licence was taken over 1820-1822 by his wife Martha Presnell, who never came to Australia".
I have a question - if Sarah's son William was the person who was transported to NSW in 1798 then who was the William PRESNELL who arrived free on the
Jessie in 1821?
This claims that he was the son of Thomas, and so the grandson of Sarah, however Thomas's son would have only been six years old in 1821.
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/PRESNELL/2002-03/1015108468Debra