F - Frederick Stagg

Frederick Stagg is somebody new-ish in our tree.

I knew there were Stagg’s in the tree. Ann Cooper, sister of my great-great-grandfather married Charles Stagg in 1812, in Montacute, Somerset. Many hours spent with Dad reading the church records on microfilm at the National Library in Wellington (thanks to the LDS and the Wellington branch of NZSG), found that Charles and Ann had 10 children.

All I had was a list of names though. I managed to track some of them through the various census’. At least four of their children died before they were ten years old as was often the case in times gone by.

I also found Ann’s burial – aged 101 ! and a newspaper account (which I have failed to write down the source for – there’s a job for the weekend) which reported her death and her approaching 102^nd birthday. Great genes, I thought. Anyway, that was about all I knew of this piece of the tree, until I came across a couple of DNA matches in New Zealand who shared DNA with lots of my Cooper line.

It made sense, so many other settler families in our tree either followed or came with siblings and cousins to the colonies. So why not this one too ? So I built their tree- cos that’s what I do, and discovered that Charles and Ann’s daughter Jane had come to New Zealand. I’m still not exactly sure when, but she married (apparently for the 2^nd time) near Wanganui in 1859 and had just one child.

The next thing I found was some affidavits on Archway and Family Search concerned with the death of Frederick Stagg who had died intestate at Wellington in 1875. One from Jane Woodman who said she was his sister and another from Fred Cooper, the seedsman, younger brother of my great-great-grandfather. In his affidavit, Fred confirmed that Jane was Frederick’s sister. They would have been first cousins. Jane & Fred were both mentioned in the notices placed in the New Zealand Times, 7 December 1875, declaring that the Public Trustee would administer Frederick’s estate.

More recently I have found that Frederick Stagg was a grocer, having a store and living on Thorndon Quay, Wellington, close to where some of his Cooper cousins were doing business as soft drink and cordial manufacturers. He was also married, to Marion/Merion and had at least three children. Two of them died in infancy, one was reported in the Evening Post, 10 March 1870. In the matters relating to his death though, there was no mention of his wife or any surviving children.

More questions than answers, again. I think I will have to buy a couple of certificates to try to discover some more.

When did they arrive in New Zealand ? Had they come direct from England ? Or via Australia where another uncle had emigrated in the 1840s. Who was Jane’s first husband and where did they marry ? Is the William Frederick Stagg aka Henshaw marriage in 1896 actually Frederick William Stagg the surviving child from Frederick Stagg’s marriage ?

And if that is him – how ironic in this crazy year to see that he named his daughter Corona !!