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Hello dathai, ballydw

Cullenstown (Wexford) rather than Collinstown (Westmeath) - I would never have got there in a million years...

Many thanks for your help, I will delve into the records and links you have suggested.

All the best

Thanks again. So they came from the Shetland Islands (as William Tait Moodie affirmed in the probate document you posted for Barbara Helen). Very exotic!
R

Thank you, Wivenhoe, Lu  et al

Brilliant, you have found Mary! To sum up, here is what we now knowmore or less for sure from different sources:

1911 Mary - described as a "spiritualist" - enters into a relationship with my grandfather (Herman) George (Tankersley) Davies, and leaves from NZ for Sydney with or following him (source: various newspaper reports on the testimony of George's first wife Bollettie née Rasmussen, in her divorce proceedings against him in NZ in May 1916)

1914 Mary gives birth to Hermia (Moodie Davies),father George Davies, in NSW (source: NSW BDM)

1914 Mary testifies in committal hearing of George Davies on fraud charges in Sydney in November (source: newspaper reports, which also confirm that George was sentenced to 2 years in Jan 1915)

1917 Mary gives birth to Ellis (Moodie Davies), Victoria ? Date and place anecdotal - but existence of Ellis confirmed by name on passenger list of the Maloja, arriving with the rest of the family at Plymouth on 24 Feb 1927 - and by my mother, his half-sister)

1919 divorce (presumed) from George Davies. Source: marriage certificate of George Davies and Eileen Goldberg (my grandmother) of 26 April (BDM Victoria). The certificate indicates that George was "divorced (14 March 1919)".

1964 Mary died in Beechworth, Victoria (Source: Victoria BDM)

I  have ordered Hermia's birth certificate fromm NSW BDM in the hope that it might tell us more about Mary: if possible I would still like to find out when and where Mary was born, anything about her ancestry/origins, anything about her (presumed) marriage to, and divorce from, (Herman) George (Tankersley) Davies.

Finally an anecdote and some conjecture. My mother remembers her half-brother Ellis ("Bunk") Moodie Davies with affection; he married Joan Stuchbery and re-emigrated to Australia (after the war, she thinks), after which she lost sight of him. However, my mother describes her half-sister Hermia Moodie Davies as a disturbed person who was at some point committed to a mental health facility. The conjecture is as follows: Beechworth, where Mary Moodie died in 1964, is the location of a well known lunatic asylum, originally known as Mayday Hills, subsequently Beechworth Lunatic Asylum. Could that be where Mary ended her days? And did George Davies play a part in having her committed? The earlier reference to her as a "spiritualist", her quite garbled testimony in the November 1914 hearing in Sydney, and the fate of her daugher Hermia would not be inconsistent with a person with mental health problems.

I would be truly grateful for anything else you can discover about Mary.

Many thanks

Richard

PS Ladyhawk: Annie Elizabeth Davies née Dodd b. 1857 Victoria, Australia - so that would also fit with Walter arriving first in Oz c. 1875.

It was Annie's mother , Bethany Dodd née Tankersley (hence my grandgrather - and uncle's - weird given name) who emigrated from Lincolnshire to Victoria. Her first four children were born there - in '56, '57, '59 and '61. Her 5th child was born in '62 in Dunedin.

Richard