Many thanks, Gaylene. for filling in details about the family of John COOPER and Hannah BIRD, which will be very useful in my files for future work, and I'm especially grateful for your time and trouble. You kindly went beyond the Digger Pioneer Index, which gives me a more complete coverage than I had managed through the on-line BDMs, and of course adds the important item of the Place. Modewarre, though possible, is not quite convincing. For my particular purpose at the moment, I still need to pinpoint which John COOPER family was in Highton (or near enough to attend the Highton church) in 1868, and I'm assuming that it was the family that lived near the Wandana Heights Lookout in 1861. But I don't know that the mother of this family had been Hannah BIRD, and the only way I can think of checking is to find some details in BDMs in the 60s which might give me a clue to follow up. Is there some way in which someone can search the Digger Indexes by place-name? One would have to know what possible localities are likely to be named at this stage - Geelong seems too broad, and I've seen Chilwell, Ashby, and Barrabool, but this may depend on where the current Registrar lived at a particular time, and I'm not familiar with them (and that handy GFG Library in Belmont has been closed). No COOPER was so kind as to get buried in the Highton Cemetery in the 1800s to give me a lead that way. I have downloaded 5 pages (i.e. 100 entries) of births and deaths between 1850 & 1880 for COOPERs whose father was called John! It looks as if the Digger Indexes may be the only way to sort these out - if only they can be searched by Place. All I know is that they had a son who was alive in 1914 - I don't know his first name, and I don't know if he grew up in the district or if his comments were based on his own memory or on family stories. I'm not even sure that his mother was MRS COOPER when she sang in 1868. If John was renting a farm in 1861, I assume he was married, but one can't be sure. Any information or suggestions would be VERY gratefully received. We have a deadline of the end of June to hand the first draft of the book to our layout person, and there are many loose ends to research as well as much writing to do - and I am very slow. This list is often a life-saver, especially for those of us with wobbly legs - and so are all the people who selflessly copy book references and everything else onto websites. Thanks, guys - have a medal! Marion