Hi Diane, I am extremely glad that you hijacked the email. Thank you for your reply you have given me some new ideas to think about. I had not considered that he was in Yallourn while she was in Fitzroy but that is most definitely a possibility. At present I do not have an address for them in 1920 but in 1922 I have 179 Moor St, Fitzroy and later that year 104 Clauscen St, N Fitzroy. The problem I am facing is that my mother-in-law was always very secretive about her family - the past is the past!! It is now that she has dementia that she let slip with a couple of things that has sent me out checking. Of course there is no body else to ask. What I have found is that after the death of the child in 1921 the mother Eleanor THOMAS nee FREEMAN started to have medical/mental problems. Things that today she would get counselling back then they were locked up for and she was there (in Sunbury Mental Institution and Castlemaine Benevolent Home) for the rest of live - 25 approx years. I am trying to piece together what may have been the life of the children - my husband's mother and her siblings - and the other family. It appears that the father (James THOMAS) may have had an affair with his wife's sister, which resulted in the birth of another child. The sister a couple of years later also ended up out at Sunbury. So as you can see it appears to be quite a traumatic life. I would be very interested in any highlights you may have found about the life style of your relatives who were miners in this area. We just may be able to help each other piece together some "flesh on the bones" so to speak. Do you have a Number in Gore Street? I would love it if you have. Have you tried ringing the council to see if they have a historian who would know? If not I shall have a go. If you are on the right track with the thought of a home for the wives then Eleanor would have been there pre 1921. I wonder if there was an electoral roll for that time frame?? Thank you Pat -----Original Message----- From: Diane Carpenter [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, 14 July 2005 7:52 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AVG] BROWN COAL MINE Hello Pat, I hope you don't mind me hijacking this email, but I wondered if you knew more about the reason why he worked in Brown Coal Mines and his wife lived in Fitzroy. The reason I ask this is that my grandmother was married to a man who worked in the Brown Coal Mine at Yallourn and she lived in Fitzroy at the same time, similar to what you mention. Do you know if the Fitzroy address was Gore Street, and if so whether it was a special boarding house or facility for wives and/or families whose husbands worked in the mines? You may not know but we have checked out the address we had as Gore Street, and it is a different building to what it was then and it is a very large block apparently, so it is possible that it was a residence where women stayed. I guess I am clutching at straws but if I don't ask, I may miss something. Thank you and regards Diane On 13/07/2005, at 10:29 PM, Pat Wade wrote: > Hello, > > It has been suggested to me that I should join the list and > ask the knowledgeable people here about this area. > > I have just received a death certificate, which states that > the informant (father) was from BROWN COAL MINE MORWELL. > > He has been listed as a miner on most certificates but I > know his wife at least was in FITZROY in 1919 and that he > was back there in 1922 after the death of a young child. > > So in fact I am only looking at a small time frame in this > area. What I would be interested in is if there are any > records that would list workers of the mine or those living > in the area? Am I likely to get children's names attending > the school, if there are any records? > > What housing, and how far away, was in the area? > > > I think that is enough for starters. Thank you very much. > > Regards, > Pat > > > > ==== AUS-VIC-GIPPSLAND Mailing List ==== > Lookups are available by going to the AVG home page at > http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~surreal/AVG/ and from there to Lookups. > If the lookup that you need isn't listed there, and is a GIPPSLAND > one, then it is appropriate to ask on list. > ==== AUS-VIC-GIPPSLAND Mailing List ==== Rootsweb asks us to keep our signatures short to save bandwidth. Anything more than about five lines is getting a bit long.