Dear Anthony, Irene and all, This is another of those very rare days when the brick walls come tumbling down - and this is all thanks to Anthony sending me scans of the relevant pages of Exiled Three Times Over"! (Not to forget all the hard work Irene Schaffer and Thelma McKay put in to write this wonderful book.) This is the pertinent section of the book, on page 171: In Sept. 1827, Thomas Fowles stated that he had two orphans under his protection, one of whom was Eleanor Gregory, aged 16, whose father had been sent to Macquarie Harbour. John Gregory, per Indian, 1810, was at Macquarie Harbour acting as the commissariat clerk - he was known for his beautiful handwriting. I checked out said John Gregory in the Col. Sec. Papers on Ancestry, and found a letter written from Hobart Town to his brother May 1823, in which he wrote " I have two motherless children, on 14 and one 11, who in the course of a very short period of time shall require to be established one way or another.." YIPPEE! I assume John Gregory sen. knew he would be sent to Macquarie Harbour as a clerk when he wrote the letter - I need to check the time M.H. was opened. There are some puzzling aspects to the ages of the children - it looks as though Eleanor was born in England, so John Gregory' s wife must have come to NSW at a very early stage. Or, she may even have accompanied him on his ship - as Mrs. Fawkner accompanied her husband on the Calcutta. The irony in all of this is the fact that I' d long ago discounted John Gregory sen. as the husband of Ann Elizabeth Gregory, firstly because he was too old, and secondly, because John Gregory junior could not read or write at all well, so couldn't have been the man with the lovely hand-writing! Best wishes and thanks, Carol Brill.