RootsChat.Com

Thank you all for your excellent sleuthing and for all the time you've spent unravelling the puzzle. You really uncovered an amazing amount of info.

I now have the marriage cert and can confirm that Archibald Colville that lived in Adelong and married Annie Gorman in 1906 was born in Yackandandah, moved to Emmaville and died in NZ. As we now know, he married three times. Sadly, his first two wives died young, leaving very young sons that Archibald seems to have left to be cared for by their aunts.

So the chronology for Archibald Colville is:

1860 (approx.)  - Archibald Colville and Mary Russell (Archibald I), from County Down, Ireland, arrive in Australia, settle in Yackandandah and have 9 children
1876 – Archibald II born in Yackandandah
1879 – Archibald I dies in Yackandandah (48 years)
1895 – Archibald II is living in Yackandandah (playing football)
1897 – Archibald II is working in Beechworth in a tannery
By 1900 - Archibald II moves to Adelong in NSW to work as a gold miner
1906 – Archibald II marries Annie Gorman, whose family owns the Shamrock Hotel in Grahamstown (near Adelong)
1907 – son Archibald Francis (Archibald III) is born, but Annie dies when Archibald is only about 12 days old, and he is taken into the care of his mother’s sister, Rose Morrison.
1907 – Archibald II leaves Grahamstown and moves to Emmaville in NSW to work as a miner (leaving his son behind)
1908 – Archibald II buys the land on which the Shamrock Hotel stands (formerly a gold mining reserve)
1912 – Rose Gorman dies, and John Morrison takes over as licensee of the Shamrock (3 years), owned by two unmarried Gorman daughters, Elizabeth and Ada.
1913 – Archibald II returns to Yackandandah, where he marries Violet Annie Waterson.
1913 – son Russell Waterson Colville is born
1915 – Violet Colville dies when Archibald III is less than two years old, and he is taken into the care of his aunt, Annie Hall Johnston Waterson, who later marries Archibald II’s brother William James Colville
1917 - Rose (nee Gorman) and her husband John Morrison leave the hotel and return to their family farm in Myrtleford, Victoria (where is Archibald III?)
By 1917 – Archibald II moves to New Zealand (Greymouth), where he works as a miner, but later works for NZ railways
1917 – Archibald II marries Hannah Gosling (widow) and has two sons, Archibald (born 1918/9) and William James (1921)
By 1924– Archibald III is living in Yackandandah
1929 – Archibald III marries Elizabeth Muriel Ryan in Wollongong. They live in Dapto. Archibald III is working as a miner. They have a daughter who lives only for a short time.
By 1932 – Archibald is living in Grahamstown and is the licensee of the Shamrock Hotel
1934 – Archibald III is the licensee when the family surrenders the licence. He returns to Dapto where he lives until his death in 1970 He is known to visit his aunt Elizabeth McNarama who continues to live in the Shamrock in Grahamstown after it ceases to be a hotel, at least until the 1940s
1954 – Archibald II dies in New Zealand aged 78 years
1968 – Archibald Colville is the registered proprietor of the block of land in Grahamstown – can we assume this is Archibald III as his father died in 1954?
1970 – Archibald III dies in Dapto

BTW I am interested in these people as I'm putting together a history of the Shamrock Hotel. Sadly the building no longer exists, but a friend has bought the land on which it stood, and I'm trying to put together a history of the families who lived and worked there. I'm not sure when the hotel was demolished, but I know it was still standing in the 1940s.

Thanks again
Fleur

Thanks, everyone for your suggestions. I must admit I was hoping to avoid buying the marriage cert. This family is of interest but not critical to my search but it looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and spend the money!

I don't think the Colville's in Victoria are the same family. I know that the Archibald who lived in Yakandanah was not my Archibald.

Thanks, Judith for the suggestion about the guardianship of young Archibald. I'd assumed it was just something that would have happened in that time, that a single father looking after a baby wasn't really a thing, but it could be that the father had also died. I know he was alive in 1908 as he bought land in Adelong that year.

Cheers
Fleur

Thanks, yes I have that one. It does provide a good deal of background info.

OOh, interesting. It appears there was no coroner's inquest, but I guess that doesn't mean anything. The article suggested she'd been ill for a while.