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Hi Cando

Thanks so much for replying to my post. This is definetly a mystery.....this is what I can make of it.

Elizabeth WICHLOW (name as on birth certificate) was born in 1858 (15/542). Father is listed as Nathaniel Wichlow and Mother is Mary Brady. She then marries Charles AGETT in 1878 (117/580). It cannot be the Eliza/Alice WICHLOW that married Charles Frederick HALE as they married in 1874 (4 years before Elizabeth and Hale) and she died at the age of 75 in 1929 with Charles Hale listed as her husband on her death certificate.

As you say all the offspring of Charles HALE and Eliza/Alice WICHLOW have her name as Alice on their birth certificates. The surname is very inconsistent however with her name spelt as WITCHLEY, WETCHELLOW, WICHELOW, WITCHELLOW & WICHLOWE

She cannot be the Alice WICKLOW that married Thomas MOORE as they too married in 1878, four years after Eliza and Frederick Hale.

According to the marriage certificate for Eliza WICHLOW who married Charles Hale she was aged 21 in 1874 - that does put her birth as 1856. There are no birth listings for any Wichellows at that time. Perhaps her birth did not get registered as you suggested.

Then to throw a further spanner in the works her death certificate which was issued in the state of Victoria in 1929 has her age at death as 75 which makes her birth year 1854. The only Wichellow listed as being born in that year is Catherine Wichelow. Alice Hale's death certificate has her parents listed as Charles Wichelow and Catherine.

Could Nathaniel Wichellow have had a brother called Charles???
Could Alice Wichellow be Catharine Wichellow born in 1854. There certainly is no listing for a marriage of Catherine Wichelow.

I have found some listings on Trove for Wichellows. I have traced them back to working on a station called Hummocks Station near Clare. My 2nd Great Grandfather Charles Frederick Hale came out from England and was working there. From what I can gather Nathaniel Wichellow was also working there and Charles married his daughter Alice. They had a son called James Hale (my great grandfather) who was born in Mongolata in 1883. Then then moved to Sale/Maffra in Victoria.

I'm planning on doing a trip to SA later in the year to do a bit more digging. I would really like to solve this mystery as my mother did not know much about her father and his family and she died just as she was getting started on researching.

I spoke to the current owners of Hummocks Station (it is now a B&B) who said that they had made contact with a lady in her 80s who lived all her life on the Station. Maybe she might be able to shed some light.

Regards

Erryn