Daryl K Povey wrote: > Hello Listers > > Identification of the Women from the Casterton area who signed the > 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition, located on the Victorian Parliament website... > http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/WomensPetition/ > has commenced Hello Listers, As a local historian (Williamstown) I put in "Williamstown" to collect all those who had signed. I was quite surprised to find only 211, and many women who would have been active in WCTU and local churches, seemed not to be listed. I've found the answer: I don't know who supervised the gluing together of the sheets, but it now transpires that many women, in signing the Williamstown sheet, gave their street address, but left off "Williamstown" thinking, obviously, that Wtn sheets would stay together . The sheets were not glued following one another, but randomly, attached to totally unrelated country and city areas, so the designation "Williamstown " did not appear, so was not in the transcription, hence they do not show up when "Williamstown" is entered for the address. The same applies to Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, etc.etc. Great Ryrie st : locals know is Geelong, but a listing for Geelong leaves off such street only addresses, and they must be searched for. And that's as it should be... transcribers cannot enter what is not there!! But for local historians trying to get together a local listing, this creates heaps of missing persons. I have been systematically searching every page to see if a group of Williamstown residents are glued, for example, between "Yandoit" and "Cobden" (pages 15 and 16) where I found 19 with street addresses only, and only 3 who added "Williamstown" What began as an exercise to check the spelling and interpretation of surnames from a "Williamstown" search, has grown into a big job. Williamstown groups are spread out between (at least) pages 15 to 746... sometimes only 2 names on the pasted strip, sometimes 20 odd. Just thought I'd pass this on for people checking areas, as I was. Regards Ada Ackerly

Progess on the Casterton area research on the 1891 petition (Glenelg & Wannon) can be viewed at.. http://www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au/casterton/1891_suffrage_petition.htm Feedback is always welcome. Regards Darl Povey Casterton & District Historical Society Inc. http://www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au/casterton/historicalsociety.htm