“Everyone has a story. Every story matters.”

Nicole Wedemeyer Miller

This is the first post on my new blog on my family history. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. I will be posting about the descendants to John Hapgood (1791-1865) and Elizabeth Shore (1790-1872), and particularly their son Thomas Hapgood and his wife Hester Hanney (my direct ancestors) who were all from the small village of Marksbury in Somerset, England, and emigrated to Ulladulla Australia in the 1850s.

The blog focusses on the Australian side of the family – Thomas and Hester HAPGOOD (nee HANNEY ), the next generation of Richard HAPGOOD and Jane WEARING, whose son William HAPGOOD married Clara Rose NEWTON, and their son Jeffrey Gordon HAPGOOD was my grandfather, who married Amy Patricia WADDELL..

Thomas Hapgood and his brother George Hapgood emigrated together, with their wives Hester Hanney and Hannah Sims and their children to New South Wales, Australia on the “Lady Ann” in 1854 . Their sister Susannah Hapgood also emigrated with her husband Edward Dando to Victoria in 1853 – a year before her brothers.

The maternal side of my fathers family are the WADDELL family. They were from County Clare, Ireland, and emigrated to Queensland. My grandmother Amy Patricia Waddell (1907-1983) married Jeffrey Gordon Hapgood (1899-1953), and the Waddells are another large family going back several generations.

This blog will focus on only my father’s Hapgood side of the family – the Hapgoods and the Waddells – otherwise its will become too big and complex to manage two separate families in one blog. This may change in future, but for now the Hapgood family is a big enough group to keep me well occupied….

If you have info to share, get in touch by emailing karenhapgood [at] gmail.com