Elizabeth Ann Nancarrow was born in Redruth, Cornwall on the 28th June 1826. She was the first child of William Nancarrow and Elizabeth Towan, married in the previous year, and among her subsequent siblings were two brothers, William and John, who would eventually migrate to the "copper triangle" of South Australia.
In July 1860 she married a Redruth man, Thomas Edwards, and they settled locally. There were two daughters trom the marriage - Bessie, born in 1861, and Sarah Jane who was born on the 10th September 1862.
Eight days after Sarah was born Thomas Edwards died. Elizabeth was left as a 36 years old widow with two infants, although it is probable that she would have been assisted by family members and close mends.
In April 1873, Elizabeth's brother WiIliam Nancarrow with his wife Elizabeth (Raby) and their children set off for South Australia as emigrants, they were sponsored by younger brother John, who was already there and well established with good standing in his community just outside Moonta. The widowed Elizabeth Edwards (46) with her daughters Bessie (11) and Sarah Jane (10) emigrated with them. The extended family of twelve Nancarrows/Edwards reached Port Adelaide early in July, and duly arrived safely at Cross Roads.
There, only six months later, Elizabeth Edwards died in January 1874, and her two young girls were orphaned. It is likely that, for the few years until they were old enough to enter domestic service, the girls were taken into the home of John and Philippa Nancarrow, devout Methodists who were childless.
By some tragic coincidence William's eldest son William Henry died on the same day when, walking home from work in the dark, he fell into an open pit and died of a broken neck. Nephew and aunty's deaths were recorded as consecutive entries on the same day in the SA Deaths Register. It is wondered if their deaths were connected - perhaps they fell down the same mine shaft - but no mention of either death was found in the local newspapers of the time. It is reputed that Elizabeth died of typhoid, and so it could only have been a tragic coincidence.
Bessie Edwards (1861-1906) married Aaron Ephraim Solly early in the 1880s, and they raised a family of two daughters and three sons in the Hindmarsh/Brompton area.
At Victoria Park (Dulwich) in April 1881, Joseph Sando married Sarah Jane Edwards (1862-1947), and there they raised ten children - and another died young.
