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Childhood Deaths - Elizabeth Flynn

Elizabeth Flynn (1855 - 1861)

I found this story several weeks ago by trawling Trove as I often do searching for random surnames in my database.

Elizabeth Flynn was the daughter of Jeremiah Flynn who lived at Count-a-Guinea, near Cooma, NSW.  My great great grandfather John Mylan was sent to live at Count-a-Guinea (now Countageny) to live with his godfather Jeremiah Flynn after the death of his father Thomas Mylan some time after 1838 when he was 5 years old.

John Mylan grew up with Jeremiah Flynn's son Jeremiah. Elizabeth, the 7th child of Jeremiah Flynn and his wife Margaret Roche, was born on 20th July 1855 at Count-a-Guinea. She had always been one of the people who I could not trace after birth. When I came across this story I realised that Elizabeth was the child lost in the bush.

LOST IN THE BUSH
A little girl about five years old, a daughter of Mr Jeremiah Flynn, of Count-a-Guinea, has been lost in the bush about three weeks, and although thirty horsemen have been out every day, no trace of her has been found. Her track was seen for seven miles, and a place where she had apparently laid down, but after that no trace could be followed. I am told that every foot of the bush and scrub about has been traversed on foot and on horseback, and as yet all efforts have been unsuccessful. - Cooma correspondent of Alpine Pioneer.
The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW: 1843 - 1893), Thursday 7 March 1861, p. 4.

My great great grandfather John Mylan would undoubtedly have been one of the horsemen to have searched for Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to Cooma papers, but the next time I am in Sydney or Canberra this will be my number one priority search. I hope I'll find out more about this mystery and what happened to Elizabeth Flynn.

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