My DNA is linking me to the Collmans. Some of the connections are strong enough that I think I’m on the trail of Edna’s father, Mystery Great Grandaddy – dear old MG.

All roads are leading to Thomas William Collman and Augusta Weston.

Who were they?

Thomas Collman was born in 1858 near the town of Cooma in the Monaro Plains region of New South Wales. “Monaro” is a corruption of an Aboriginal word meaning “treeless plains” and Cooma, originally spelt “coombah”, means either “big lake” or “open country”. It’s cold, sparse, difficult country.

The township of Cooma was established in the 1840s. Somewhere around that time the Collman family owned the vast Boloco and Boloco Creek Stations near the village of Dalgety (originally named Buckley’s Crossing), about 60km south of Cooma. One Station alone was 1200 acres of land, accommodating 2700 sheep and 900 cows!

Augusta Weston was born in Wollongong in 1856. Wollongong is warm, picturesque coastal New South Wales, a long way from Cooma in both distance and lifestyle.

Gold was discovered nearby to Cooma in 1859. Over the next twelve months the town of Cooma was inundated by miners and prospectors. Some say over 15,000 people passed through the town in less than a year.

Maybe the Westons were in search of the Golden Dream. By 1862 the Westons were living near Cooma, where several of Augusta’s siblings were born. In 1879, John Weston purchased 320 acres of land at Buckley’s Crossing, just a ‘coo-ee’ from Boloco.

Augusta and Thomas were married in Cooma in March 1880, about the time that the local gold rush ended. Next minute, they were living in Waterloo in Sydney, almost 400km away. Their son Sydney Arthur Collman was born in Waterloo in June 1880, three months after their marriage… oops.

There were five more Collman children born in Sydney –

• Caroline Edith in March 1882
• Thomas Williams in Redfern in August 1884
• John Weston in St Peters in December 1887
• Augusta Gladys in Hurstville in August 1890
• and Doris Irene in Hurstville in August 1894

Is it just a coincidence that some of these Collman children were born in Waterloo and Redfern where Edna grew up? I mean, they were born there in the 1880s and she wasn’t even born until 1909. By 1909 the Collman family had been living in Hurstville for around two decades.

Sometime in the early 1900s, something happened. Something changed in the Collman family. Thomas Collman senior moved to the township of Casino in northern NSW, but Augusta and some of the children seem to have stayed in Sydney.

At about the time that this ‘something’ happened in the Collman family, ‘something’ happened in the Willock family. The Willocks suddenly moved hundreds of kilometres north from the Bathurst area, to settle in a place called Mallanganee, “the heart of beef country”.

Casino is only about 40km away from the town of Mallanganee…

…hmmm, this is looking very interesting!