There has been a Christmas miracle.

A photograph.

For the first time, thanks to a new connection, I’m seeing the face of one of the Collman brothers. He’s a little blurry but he’s a Collman and I feel blessed to see his face.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been on the hunt for an elusive Collman man, my Mystery Great grandfather Collman, a man that I lovingly call M.G.

My DNA says that M.G. is one of five sons from two marriages between two brothers named Collman and two sisters named Weston. One of them was in the right place at the right time to be the father of my grandmother.

I’ve looked at the lives of the two sons of Charles and Louisa and now I’m looking at the lives of the three sons of Thomas and Augusta.

Today it’s the turn of John Weston Collman, known to his family as Jack. Maybe by looking a little more closely at Jack’s life, I can rule him in or out as being M.G.

Jack Collman was born in Hurstville, Sydney, just before Christmas 1887. His birth was registered by his father Thomas, but not until February 1888. Despite living in the suburbs of Sydney for seven years, on Jack’s birth record Thomas wrote that his occupation was ‘farmer’.

Jack must have been a pretty baby, because in 1889 his mother Augusta entered him into a baby show at the Darlinghurst Hall.

The show became a bit of a drama, when way too many entries were submitted and far too many visitors arrived. It ran for three days from 23 to 26 October, and 20,000 people poured through the doors on one day alone. By the time the show was over, estimates of 70,000 people had passed through the doors and little Jack Collman was not listed among the winners.

In 1896, when Jack was 9 years old, his father Tom Collman left the family home, moving north to Mungindi and then to Casino.

Can I place Jack anywhere remotely near to my grandmother’s mother, Miriam Willock, around the end of 1908?

The best I’ve got is that around the end of 1910, when Jack was in his early 20s, he seems to have been working in the New South Wales town of Moree (just 80 kilometers from Warialda, where another John Collman – an older man, possibly Jack’s uncle – was the Inspector of Stock and had been the co-respondent in a rather messy divorce in Sydney in 1909).

If it was ‘our Jack’ at Moree, the reason I know he was there is because he was involved in a terrible accident.

It doesn’t really help because I still don’t know where Jack was in late 1908, the specific time that Miriam Willock was trysting with a Collman.

At St Stephen’s church in Newtown in April 1912, Jack married the widow Elizabeth Ann Gilmore (nee Hale), who was several years his senior.

The next few years were a tumultuous time in the Collman household. Baby Edward John Collman was born in June 1913, was baptised the following month and died soon after aged only six weeks. Baby Clyde Neil Collman was born in July 1914.

Clyde died in tragic circumstances in 1938 and was buried in the same grave as his baby brother Eddie.

Five years later, Elizabeth died. Her death notice reveals that she had children from her previous marriage.

In 1945 Jack married Cordelia Scott Gilmore. It may be a coincidence that both of his wives had the surname Gilmore – his first wife’s maiden name was Hale.

Around 1963 Jack and Cordelia moved from Sydney to Umina near Woy Woy. Jack died in Newtown in 1969.

Jack is yet another Collman that I can’t rule in or out. He has no living descendants that I could DNA match with.

Which might actually help to solve the mystery…