I knew it wasn’t going to be easy but honestly, researching these Collmans is getting me nowhere. I have researched up and down, back and forth, sideways, and round and round. So far, I haven’t ruled any of them out, and I haven’t made any real breakthrough either. I’m down to the last of the Collman Five. Come on Sydney Arthur Collman, please throw me a clue!

Sydney Arthur Collman, known to his family as Syd, was born on 28 June 1880, in Raglan Street Waterloo. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Raglan Street is the same street that my grandmother Edna lived on when my father was born. It’s the same street that she lived on when she did that unspeakable thing – delivered her sons to the orphanage and didn’t come back. Is it relevant or a coincidence?

Syd was the first child of Thomas and Augusta Collman. His birth record describes Thomas as a grazier… and yet they lived in a busy city. Perhaps ‘grazier’ is explained by the fact that three months before Syd was born, Thomas and Augusta lived on a large cattle station in the far-away rural town of Cooma, the gateway to the New South Wales snowfields. Perhaps they intended to go back there. But history shows that they didn’t return to Cooma.

In 1898, aged 17, Syd was appointed Telegraph Messenger in Hurstville and thus began a long association with Government employment.

On the 18th of February 1905, Syd was appointed Postal Assistant at Mungindi, a town on the border between Queensland and New South Wales. Mungindi was the same town where his father had so recently been the acting Inspector of Stock.

It was about this time that my Willock family moved from Bathurst to the tiny town of Mallanganee (the purple splodge in the map below), which is also near the Queensland border. While maps make the towns of Mungindi and Mallanganee look quite near to each other, they are almost 500 kilometers apart.

Still, there are possibilities here for Syd to have met Edna’s mother, Miriam. By 1905, Syd’s father was living in the town of Casino. From Mungindi, Casino is just a little further along the road towards the coast, after passing through Mallanganee.

In the space between Edna being conceived and being born, Syd married Lola E Hough in Burwood in Sydney.

He and Lola were next found in the town of Bellata, where according to the 1913 Electoral Roll, Syd was the Postmaster and Lola did domestic duties. On the map below, Bellata (the red square in the bottom left) appears to be not too far away from Casino (Syd’s father) but once again it’s hundreds of kilometers from one town to the other and once again, he would likely pass through Mallanganee (the little purple blob) on the road to Casino.

Syd and Lola appear to have been quite settled in Bellata. They were there for around a decade before Syd was transferred in his job to Culcairn – another town that spans the border of New South Wales and Queensland.

Just like his father, Syd played cricket and other sports.

Like other Collman men, Syd was a member of his local Masonic Lodge.

In August 1921, Syd was on six months furlough from his job as the senior postal assistant in Culcairn.

One month later, the reason Syd was on extended leave from his job might have been apparent. On 27 September 1921, in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, Syd died of an illness that suggests he was probably unwell for quite a while. The informant was his brother-in-law W.B. Young, who said that Syd was “late of Post Office, Culcairn”.

Have I learned anything that will rule Syd in or out as being Edna’s father, the mysterious M.G.?

It’s tenuous, but all I can say is that Syd was in the general vicinity (if you can call hundreds of kilometers the general vicinity) of the Willock family in Mallanganee. He was also in Sydney during the right time period. From any of the towns where he lived, he most likely would have passed through Mallanganee if he ever visited his father in Casino.

Equally tenuous, Syd was a postal worker… Miriam’s mother was the postmistress at Mallanganee… but not before Edna was born.

Syd had three children. One died as a child, and one died without marrying or having children as far as I can tell.

Syd and Lola’s son, Sydney George Collman, had three children. That’s three descendants of a man who might be M.G.

All I have left now is hope.

Hope that one day one of Syd’s descendants does an ancestry DNA test…