Over the past two years I have been on a magical mystery tour trying to work out whose blood is running through my veins. My DNA results have revealed that my grandmother – Edna – was raised by a family that she had no biological connection with. Through my Edna blog series I worked out who Edna’s mother was by using a combination of traditional genealogical research and the results of my DNA test.

The identity of MG (my Mystery Great grandfather) continues to elude me.

I’ve decided to start a completely new series to track my journey while I try to prove who MG really was.

Welcome to the Collman story. To bring everyone into the picture, I thought I would start again from the beginning… just kidding! Here’s a quick re-cap:

My DNA results are telling me quite clearly that MG is the offspring of a Collman and a Weston… but there are two couples to choose from – two Collman brothers married two Weston sisters!

And it looks like this…

In 1874, Charles Collman married Louisa Weston in Cooma NSW. Charles and Louisa had two sons who could be MG –

George Charles Percival Collman (1877 – 1962) and Robert Herbert Collman (1890 – 1916).

In 1880, Charles Collman’s brother Thomas Collman married Louisa Weston’s sister Augusta Weston in Cooma NSW. Thomas and Augusta had three sons who could be MG –

Sydney Arthur Collman (1880 – 1921), Thomas William Collman (1884 – 1961) and John Weston Collman (1887 – 1969).

My cousin has decided to take a DNA test and hopefully her results combined with mine will steer us in a particular direction.

Meanwhile, what if I could narrow this down through place and time?

To be the daddy of my grandmother, MG had be be in the right place at the right time, i.e. he had to be in the same place as Edna’s mother about nine months before Edna was born – roughly somewhere around late November through to Christmas 1908.

Over the next few posts I will track the stories of the Collman men – the two Collman-Weston marriages, and the five sons who could turn out to be MG.

What if I could rule one or more of their sons out of this picture by proving they can’t have been in that place at that time – wherever that place actually was…