----- Original Message ----- From: "Geoff Stevenson" <pgtjs@hotmail.com> To: <aus-vic-goldfields@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, November 08, 2010 7:31 PM Subject: Re Thomas Mason at Creswick and Benalla Hi Geoff When you post a new message to any mailing list please select a 'New message' It make for very messy mailing list mail when some one, as you did , tacks their new message to a long trail of messages that everyone has already seen. All messages get archived too. > I am relatively new to this list. I am descended from a guy named Thomas > Mason and who registered the birth of his daughters in Creswick in 1855 > and at Benalla in 1858 and 1860. In between another daughter was > registered in Collingwood. About 1862 he went to Otago presumably to the > NZ gold rush and returned from there in 1868. At various times in the > registrations he stated he was a carrier and at other times a grocer and > later a "gentleman of independent means. His family back in LIverpool Liverpool ???? Thomas MASON was b in Liverpool UK . Elizabeth Sarah CORNWELL b in London > > It would seem that Thomas may have been some kind of providore to the > miners in the various locations mentioned. He was not legally married to > his wife - the mother of the daughters until 1868 - so perhaps this > indicates he was a "transient" who 'came good". Perhaps he was married to someone else and had to wait ? > Does any one have any suggestions as to how I might determine more > specifically about his activities. I have scoured the Internet and got a > general picture of the times both in Melbourne, Creswick and in NZ but > nothing more about him. Are there newspaper notices http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home or commercial directories available for these locations? Try http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/contentsearch.aspx?sb=c&p=Australia maybe a ref in http://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/ Did the whole family go to the USA ? Bye MargM Beautiful Central Coast of NSW