Hello Lorrae, Single Irish girls of the 'working class' with no family to support them were often classified as "pauper" by the parish council of their home town and rather than support them or go to the Workhouse the councils found it cheaper to pay the fare to remove them to another country. The life of an Irish girl in the mid 1800's was not good, and the opportunity to improve their staus by migrating to another country was often seen as 'a good deal' for some of the girls. In the Irish countryside they were expected to help in the field with the men, turf cutting, planting, cultivating, harvesting the grain and lifting the potatoes. All this plus bearing and raising the children, cooking, cleaning, sweeping the yard, milking the cows, feeding the animals and growing the vegetables and very few men would help with the women's work On the whole Irish women, at that time, were considered to be inferior to men and life expectancy for Irish country women was not good, so, a new country a new life and a possible marriage to a 'self sufficient farmer looked very good. The foundling hospitals and workhouses sent several thousand girls to Australia. Some records of these institutions have survived so if you think your 'Irish Lass' was one of these girls an enquiry at the record office of the relevant county in Ireland will tell you if the records are available. On arrival most were indentured as apprentices or domestic servants, some as house servants and the uneducated mostly as 'yard servants', kitchen maid or something similar. Many were ill treated by their employers. The government might move some into the country areas as servants or prospective wives for the isolated farmers. An interesting book to look for in the local family history library is "From Shamrock to Wattle" by Trevor McClaughlin, chapter 5 gives an explanation about the small amount of records available in the NSW Archives, most of which covers the period 1848-1851 only. Another study by Trevor McClaughlin is called "Barefoot and pregnant? Irish Famine ophans in Australia" published by the Genealogical Society of Victoria in 1991, a copy of which is held in the NSW Mitchell Library. It contains an index of orphans who arrived 1848-1850 giving details about native place, parents, relatives in the colony and if indentured. Regards, Carole ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom & Lorrae Johnson To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 2:43 PM Subject: [AUS-IRISH] Single Irish girls Hi every-one I am hoping that there is some-one who can tell me why so many boat loads of unmarried lasses (of marriagable age) migrated to this country on their own, please? I have TWO female ancestors with no other family in this country, who arrived via boat, and married some after arrival. I have been unable to find out what they did on their arrival to fill the short gaps. ....... ***** .......