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  1. #1
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    Post Origins of George Alfred Wood, 1820 settler

    I am seeking help in finding additional information about the origins of George Alfred Wood, b. 1805 Camberwell, London and d. 1884 Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa. We know the names of his parents (George Alfred Wood Sr and Martha Wood). But we know little else about them. George Alfred Wood (jr) left England at the age of 14 as an apprentice to Richard Smith who travelled with the Sephton Party on the Aurora, with other 1820 Settlers. Neither of his parents travelled with him. It is presumed that his father had died some years earlier but we have not found specific evidence to confirm that. We are fairly certain that his mother remarried and went on to have 4 daughters with her second husband. We don’t know her maiden name. As things currently stand, therefore, we are not able to explore George Alfred Wood’s (jr) ancestry any further. We are also not entirely certain of the circumstances of his departure for South Africa. It would be wonderful to be able to gain further insights in either of these areas.

    Here is my attempt to make sense of the chronology.
    1. George Alfred Wood (sr) born around 1780 (George jr’s Will).
    2. Martha (maiden name??) born around 1785 (George jr’s Will).
    3. George Alfred Wood (sr) and Martha Wood marry around 1803 (by which time Martha would have been 18 and George 23).
    4. George Alfred Wood (jr) is born in Camberwell, London in 1805. In almost all the documentation related to him including his Will, he is referred to as the Honourable George Wood, with no mention of Alfred.
    5. George Alfred Wood (sr) dies between 1805 and 1814, before his widow Martha marries Henry Pomeroy. We have not yet been able to locate any evidence of George Alfred Wood’s death. Neither are we absolutely certain that his widow Martha Wood is indeed the person who married Henry Pomeroy in 1814. But there is strong circumstantial evidence – see below.
    6. Martha Wood marries Henry Pomeroy in St Giles Camberwell on 25 December 1814 (seems an odd day to choose to get married?)
    7. Henry and Martha’s first born is Mary Ann Pomeroy born 26 May 1816.
    8. William, son of Edward and Fanny WYNNE, was born 16 March 1814 in the parish of St.Andrew, Holborn.
    9. Edward Wynne has to withdraw from Sephton’s party (Aurora, 1820 settlers to South Africa) due to death of his wife Fanny but later (presumably much later) travels to the Cape with his children.
    10. George Alfred Wood (jr) age 14 leaves his mother and two step sisters to travel with (and apprenticed to) Richard (and Mary) Smith.
    11. Presumably the Smiths, the Wynnes and the Pomeroy’s would all have come to know each other through the common experiences of the preparations for Sephton’s party and the departure in 2019.
    12. I presume that Edward and his children only moved to the Cape AFTER his son William had married Mary Ann Pomeroy (likely after 1834 by which time William Wynne would have been 20 and Mary Ann Wynne (nee Pomeroy) 18). The alternative, namely that Mary Ann Pomeroy travelled separately and later to the Cape in order to marry William seems less likely?
    13. Mary Ann Wynne (nee Pomeroy) is mentioned in the Will of George Alfred Wood (jr), though not with her full names. Nevertheless, we can be fairly certain that it is indeed her because she is said to be the “Testator’s sister and wife of WILLIAM WYNNE, Esquire”. She is granted use during her lifetime of a house near Alice, Eastern Cape as well as an annuity.
    14. George Alfred Wood (jr)’s other sisters Elizabeth, Patience and Martha presumably remain in England?
    15. It seems possible that George Alfred Wood (jr) name his fifth son Henry Richard (my great grandfather) after his step father Henry Pomeroy?

    I would be enormously grateful if someone could assist me in any way.

    Regards,
    Eric

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Since doing a little sleuthing for Eric I have added a page on George Wood to the eGGSA site

    https://www.eggsa.org/1820-settlers/i...rge-extra-data

    Despite Martha Wood being described as a spinster rather than a widow in 1814, I am pretty sure that Mary Ann Pomeroy was George Wood's half sister. What I can't find is a definitive first marriage for Martha to George Wood senior. Sources in South Africa say that George junior was born in Camberwell, but I have found no proof of this either way. Martha Pomeroy died in Camberwell in 1843.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  3. #3
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Since both his death notice and his obituary list George Wood Junior's birth as around May 1805 in London, I have moved this to the London Forum in the hope that it might attract the attention of some London experts.

    You also say that George's will seems to indicate a birth for George Senior in 1780. Sadly at this time middle names were often not used in the parish registers - all the George Alfreds I can find are from the latter part of the 19th century - and George Wood is a common name, but I have found a baptism for a George Wood in 1780 which MIGHT be worth considering.

    George, son of Joseph and Eleanor Wood, Charles Street, baptised 22 August 1780 in St.Andrew's, Holborn

    I have also found this baptism
    Elizabeth daughter of George Wood, sawyer, and Martha baptised 1 November 1809 in Christ Church, Southwark, born Oct 13th

    Now I don't know if this was a younger sibling. If it was then she may have died young, as it is unlikely they would have used the name Elizabeth for Elizabeth Pomeroy if she had a half sister of that name still living (though it is not totally unknown!).

    Both of the above were found initially via Family Search and did not come up during an index search on Ancestry, but I found them by looking at the original images. If you do not have a subscription to Ancestry then it might be worth using the free access at your local library and going through the original images of the London Metropolitan Archives collection, and scrolling through the various churches in the Southwark and Camden boroughs (initially) for the years around 1805 to see if you can find George junior's baptism. I did have a scroll through Christ Church for that date but couldn't find it, though the registers for that time were not easy to read.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  4. #4
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    Hello Eric
    Your post to this site was brought to my attention recently. My name is Allan Wood(we are distantly related)and I too have been researching the origins of George Wood the 1820 Settler and the Wood family in South Africa for many years. I have written up quite a substantial document on this subject over time which I think can add to your knowledge quite a lot and I would be happy to share it with you at some stage. Ten years ago I hired a UK genealogist to look into these origins and he found some useful stuff but mysteries and uncertainties remain, especially concerning George's father. I concur with most of what you write but I have different information on Martha and on George himself.
    Rather than go into things here may I suggest we establish contact on email so that we can exchange information more easily outside of this website. My email is wood64492ATgmailDOTcom

    It so happens that we share the same great grandfather, Henry Richard Wood (1838-1921) so I am intrigued to learn more about your side of the family. I am descended through Earnest Kingsley Wood (1877 1954) one of Henry's sons through his first wife, and who is my grandfather. From my files I deduce that you are descended either from George William (Willie) Wood (1864-1934) or from Gordon Wood (1882-1967), both from Henry's first wife Lettie. My document on both these men is pretty thin so I'm hoping you can flesh them out for me.

    Looking forward very much to hearing back from you.
    Regards

    Allan Wood
    Sydney
    Last edited by christanel; 30-09-2021 at 2:44 AM. Reason: email address disguised to deter spammers

  5. #5
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    Hello Sue
    I am a descendant of George Wood the 1820 Settler and have been researching his origins for many years now. In your replies to ericwood I see you refer to George's Death Notice which is lodged in the Cape Archives. You also refer to his obituary. Can you give me a transcript (or copy)of what the Death Notice and the obituary actually say about his parents?
    I have a full copy of George's will and there is no mention at all of his father or that he as born in 1780.
    Thanks and regards
    Allan Wood
    wood64492 AT gmail DOT com
    Last edited by Pam Downes; 30-09-2021 at 3:59 AM. Reason: Email address disguised to deter spammers.

  6. #6
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Hallo Allan
    I am not related to George Wood but run the 1820 section and the newspaper transcription section of the eGGSA website. There is a direct link to George's Death Notice on the eGGSA page mentioned in #2 of this thread, and I have transcribed his obituary from the Grahamstown Journal as part of my extracts from that newspaper (there are other references to him if you use the site specific search engine) - the main obituary is at https://www.eggsa.org/newspapers/ind...84-11-november

    I recently had another e-mail from Eric and had another look at his origins. I could find nothing definite about George Alfred and Martha, but I did discover that Henry Pomeroy and Martha had six daughters, not four, so have updated the eGGSA page.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  7. #7
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    Hello Sue

    Thank you so much for the links to George Wood's obituary which I had not seen before. Also for the reference to the Death Notice. I am very doubtful about the reference to, and the existence of, this George Alfred Wood senior. I will explain a bit below.

    Are you aware of and do you have access to the book "They Came From a Far Land" by May Bell (Maskew Miller Limited, Cape Town 1963)? This is a well written and I think reliable social history of the 1820 Settlers and it focuses on the Wood family, the Hoole family and some others. May Bell was a great granddaughter of George the Settler and collected some family gossip about George from her grandmother. I get most of my information about George from this book but also from Dr Geoff Swinfield, a UK genealogist who I contracted in 2011 to investigate George's origins. He found Martha's wedding certificate to Henry Pomeroy, record of her six daughters, and her Burial Notice of 1843. Taking Martha's spinsterhood at her wedding to be correct, and therefore her maiden name to be Wood,and therefore nine year old George to have been born illegitimately, he found her baptismal record in The Church of All Saints in Maidstone, Kent in 1784 by parents William and Ann Wood. He then found a baptismal record for "George son of Martha Wood" dated 11 September 1804 in the same Maidstone church. This date slightly contradicts the tombstone and the Death Note in 1884 in South Africa, but there is an argument to say that both of these were just wrong. If this was our George then he could not have been born in London.

    Swinfield searched through all Kent and some areas of London but found no record at all of this mysterious George Alfred Wood; no baptism, no marriage, no death records. (Mind you he did not report that baptism of that George Alfred Wood in Holborn that you found). May Bell's account says that George was taciturn about his own father, but what scraps of information his family did recall were that his father was a man from Kent and that George had spent some time with him somewhere in Kent when he was a little boy. I could go on a bit on this matter, but suffice to say that I consider it is possible the George, ashamed of his illegitimate birth, fudged or invented some things so that even at his death his family were guessing about his origins.
    I am not prepared to accept that Martha's wedding certificate is an error and that "Spinster" should have read "Widow" in the absence of any reasonable evidence that this man George Alfred Wood existed and was in some way connected to Martha. My narrative says that George Wood's father is unknown.

    I am very keen to make contact with Eric Wood. Can you tell whether he was aware of my post #4 to this thread? Because he turns out the be my third cousin (we share a great grandfather) I have quite a lot to tell him and I would like to share personal family stories outside this website. Does your site permit us to exchange personal email addresses? I put mine on the bottom of my earlier post to him and to you but I see your system scrambled them for security reasons. Can you put me in email contact with Eric?

    Thanks for your interest in my family story.
    Regards
    Allan

  8. #8
    Super Moderator christanel's Avatar
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    Hi Allan
    Brit-Gen has a private messaging system, which is exactly what it says - nobody else, admin, mods or members can access your message. You can use it to exchange email addresses with Eric. Of course it will only work if he has kept his email address on here up to date and this is also the case with receiving notification of your post.
    Click on ericwood avatar and from the dropdown menu click on Private Message.
    Good luck
    Christina
    Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
    William Burroughs

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