Is this the same man???

Ive talked before about my Henry Goodrum/William Henry Goodwin  conundrum.

Well I may be a step closer on my trail to solving the mystery.

This week the very nice retired vicar at St Peters Church in Onehunga sent me a photocopy of the register of the marriage of Jane BOYD to Henry GOODRUM, from February 3rd 1842

The first thing that struck me about this document is that of the 5 people involved in the wedding, ( the Vicar, Bride, Groom and 2 witnesses) only 2 were literate. Those two being the Vicar Arthur  G Purchas, and the groom, Henry Goodrum.

 

The second thing that was of interest was the witness, Charles Goodrum because the Goodrum family in Gissing, Norfolk that I believe Henry came from included a Charles in the list of siblings . ( I still have to research the age of this Charles to see if the ages match– I have some more details on him that I discovered yesterday)

I have a copy of the signature of William Henry Goodwin, from late in his life, on the copy of his will that I found at Auckland Archives

 

SO my next task was to compare the signatures – Ive done this below

 

Apart from the obvious difference ( the addition of the name William) and the fact that the 2 signatures were written more than 50 years apart , there are some obvious similarities between the two. The formation of the H in particular really stood along with the capital G. – Also the fact that in both signatures there is no connection between the second o and the d – all lead me to believe that both documents were in fact signed by the same man.

What do you think??