Stephen Tamo's brother, Pietro TAMO

Pietro Tamo and Alice Kendall in Daylesford, Victoria in the 1870's.

I've written a little about Stephen Tamo and his wife Ellen Tamo nee Clarke.  Ellen is the sister of my great great grandfather Patrick Clarke (1866-1902).

The reason we are so interested in Ellen Clarke is that we have no death records or burial records. She just disappears sometime between 1892 and 1895 as far as all the researchers in our family are concerned.  (Serendipitously, Patrick's wife, Louisa Salter, also has a sister called Ellen who also disappears. I spend a lot of time searching for Ellens and Nellies and Nells and Helens.)

In an effort to discover Ellen's burial under her married name Tamo, I started investigating Trove, the digitised newspaper section of the National Library of Australia.  What came up was a wealth of newspaper articles under the name Tamo, but for Stephen's brother's family.

Stephen and Pietro Tamo were born in Switzerland in the late 1830's.  After emigrating, Stephen settled in Geelong and Pietro settled in Daylesford, Victoria, and I gather (but I could be wrong) that Pietro was fairly affluent and had something to do with the mines there in 1869.  More of that to be researched.  He also married in 1869, to Alice Kendall, an Englishwoman.

They had 7 children together.  I could list all their children, but it is easier if you just read the death notice I found for Alice that summarises the children and their lives. It appeared in The Argus on 18 July, 1927 in the Family Notices section as below:

Although Alice lived to a ripe old age, unfortunately her husband Pietro did not.  He died in Daylesford in 1880, 47 years before her, at the age of 43. Although I can't find anything (so far) in the newspaper to mark Pietro's passing, I did find a photo of a memorial to him erected recently by his great grandsons. What a lovely tribute to him. We could all wish for as much.

Historically yours,
Valerius Copernicus

Article identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3867338

Page identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page455684

Clarke-Tamo-Andrews/Clarke-Kellaway-Andrews

About two weeks ago I wrote about some Clarke descendants. 

This is part of the article I wrote:  "Just to make sure it is REALLY hard to figure out my family tree, I've discovered that some cousins married the same bloke.

My great great grandfather Patrick Clarke (who married Louisa Salter) had three brothers and three sisters. One of his sister's names was Johanna Clarke, who married Edward William Kellaway.  One of their children was SARAH ELLEN KELLAWAY, called Nellie.

Another of Patrick's sisters was Ellen Clarke who married Stephen Tamo.  One of their daughters was ALICE OLIVE TAMO.

So Nellie Kellaway and Alice Tamo are first cousins........."

Then I added: "I discovered Nellie's burial in 1915 in the Williamstown Cemetery and Fred's burial there 42 years later in 1957."

Today I went to Williamstown Cemetery and found their grave.

Fred and Nellie reunited in death 42 years later.

Fred was buried with his first wife Sarah Ellen (known as Nellie), 42 years after she died.  His second wife Alice must have watched him being buried in 1957 with double feelings of grief as she also remembered the death of her cousin Nellie.

Four years later in 1961, Alice dies. She is cremated and her plaque is on the memorial wall at Altona Cemetery.