Jacqueline Templeton

This is a short but interesting book which I found because I was looking for more information about my ancestry, which includes a young man who emigrated from Poschiavo in the aftermath of the Victorian goldrush. Poschiavo is a Swiss valley just over the border from Tirano in Italy, and it's mentioned in the book, but the main focus is on the Valtellina valley in northern Lombardy and the migration back and forth between there and Australia from the 1850s onwards. Much of this was intended as temporary migration, to earn money to send back to Europe, but many migrants settled for good in Australia. More than half the book consists of letters between migrants and their families back 'home', and although these are sometimes interesting, they're not selected for their literary merit, and I certainly didn't read all of them. The book does feel a little disjointed, which is probably due to the tragic fact the author, Jacqueline Templeton, died suddenly before being able to finish it. But only a little. It's a credit to the editors that it is as good and valuable as it is. Missing an index though, which is a terrible pity for a book like this.… (mere)