Denise this would depend what country the mum came from and as to what she was leaving. I have read many letters from immigrants back home to Ireland, who arrived from Shannagolden, Limerick. First they would try and get one healthy one out who could work to send the money back home and arrange with (in this case the Landlord, Lord Mounteagle)to send out another, usually not the women and children first as they needed the workers here to earn the passages over here. Then they would start requesting for the cousins to come out. Sometimes they decided against the elderly leaving as the journey was too much, some women left their children with relatives until they had enough money to send for them. There have also been a couple of letter where if the child was what they termed "backward" he/she was often left with the grandparents and money from Australia sent over for their care. I suppose this makes sense since there was no social security here and no-one to look after them while they worked, they probably thought it best to leave a child where they knew he/she would be okay. Kerry ----- Original Message ----- From: "Denise" <denisem@powerup.com.au> To: <AUS-VIC-HIGH-COUNTRY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 6:04 PM Subject: [HC] Query on children of the 1800s Hi all I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has discovered that a child/children of a family was either left behind in the homeland or sent there/back perhaps. I now have some information which leads me to believe that one of mine was left behind after birth whilst the mother returned to Australia. I do have a theory, but don't know if it worth anything. So I would be keen to see a discussion on this if any of you have found this - I would like to hear some other reasons why this would happen. Denise