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California. Though his brothers were to remain in Australia for longer periods, only
Maurizio and Giacomo were to settle in the Colony.
In the mid 1850s Maurizio had been living in Spring Creek as a miner, and
possibly a store owner in Hepbum. By 1862 he had moved to Boots Gully near
Eganstown (ref figure 8), where he married a young girl from Someo, Maddalena
Tognazzini, whose sister Maria had traveUed to Australia with Eustachio Morganti in
1861. Some years earUer, Maddalena's father Pietro had been a passenger aboard the
Asia with Maurizio and his brothers. After settling at Jim Crow, Pietro had been
joined by several family members, a son Noe being the first to arrive in 1855. In 1858,
he had retumed to Someo to escort his wife and another son and daughter to the
Colony and his daughter Maddalena had also emigrated at some stage. It had become
difficult for females in Someo to find husbands, due to the exodus of young men to the
American and Australian goldfields: this may have been the reason for Maddalena's
voyage. In the mid 1850s a gender imbalance had arisen, reaching serious proportions:
of the 250 people who were eventually to leave Someo between 1843 and 1873, 238
were young single males. ^* In Austraha, the opposite situation was unfolding with
males unable to find wives, especially wives from an Italian-speaking background:
very few Italian-speaking women, apart from those joining husbands or fiances, had
emigrated to the Colony. It is quite possible, therefore, that a marriage had been
arranged between the Tognazzini and Morganti families to overcome this problem.
It is equally possible that a friendship had developed during Maurizio and
Maddalena's time in Austraha, this eventually leading to marriage. As settlers in a new
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