Confined mainly to Victoria, Australia.

During my life I have had a fascination with gold mines, spending much of my youth exploring old adits in Beechworth and Ararat, much to the concern of my late mother.
Until I started investigating my family history I didn’t realise that so many of my ancestors were involved in gold-mining for substantial parts of their lives.

My four great-grandfathers were all gold-miners in various locations in Victoria – Ballarat, Maryborough, Heathcote, Buckland Valley, Yackandandah to name a few. A great-great-grandfather emigrated from England at the start of the rush in Ballarat, then after a few years returned to England to collect his aged mother and five of his brothers and bring them to Ballarat. His mother, who is of course my great-great-great-grandmother, died in 1859 and is buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the Ballarat New Cemetery. One of his brothers also died of ‘colonial fever’ in Ballarat, and the remaining members of the family eventually settled in Heathcote, Victoria.