Hello Jenni, I suppose you have looked at "Wool Past the Winning Post by Heather Ronald, on the Chirnside family? The 1862 Land Act under Section 17offered many leases for land. Purchasers had to sign that they were applying for land for their own use, and that they had selected no other land. Andrew Chirnside acquired thousands of acres by using dummy bidders who then transferred the land to him. The Public Record Office has at least one series illustrating this: VPRS 832, Applications for Crown Grant of land leased under Section 17, 1862 Land Act, in Unit 1, Bundle 1 are listed 111 such allotments at Caramballac (he was entitled to purchase only ONE by the Land Act), a total of 39,000 acres! These licences were entered in the "red book" which indicates Lands staff felt the purchases should not be allowed. They were also referred to as "red faced Returns" for the same reason. I think there are also at least another 90 allotments of 19,850 acres which were aquired in much the same way, plus a note that Chirnside was agitating for a further 112 allotments to be issued to him because he had been allowed to be the purchaser of the previous 200! They refer to Baangal, Kornong, Caramballock North & South Other persons who were not quite as greedy and devious (excuse the language as this is your relative) as Chirnside were Alexander McGill of Gatum Gatum, I McVean of Cressey, J.B. Hughes of Redruth.... and this was from a cursory look at the first box in this series! This is probably the reason why Bealiba was so difficult to sort out and sell, as it was made up of at least 40 different licences, but it was sold in 1907 after, according to Mrs Ronald, an "Act of Parliament", though it was likely, she says, to be caused by the difficulty in locating all the 40 different titles. Hope that helps you. Regards Ada At 11:27 26-04-02 +1000, you wrote: >Hi, >Is anyone researching the Bealiba area? I am trying to find any info on >the "Bealiba Station" [farm] that was owned by the Werribee CHIRNSIDES >{Werribee Mansion etc} >It was run by Thomas LEE from about early 1870's. >Thomas LEE is my gg grandfather and his wife Elizabeth WATSON was related >to the CHIRNSIDES. > >Any suggestions as to where I can get my hands on any sources for that >area would be great. > >And thankyou to everyone who did the marraige lookup for me, I was >astounded with the response!!! > >Kind regards >Jenni > > > >==== AUS-VIC-GOLDFIELDS Mailing List ==== >Support RootsWeb and help it support genealogy >http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html regards, Ada Ackerly, Melbourne, Australia formerly Ackerly DocuSearch