James Lowis was born in Westmorland, England in 1853. He came to Victoria in around 1879 where he met Annie Bear. They were married in Fitzroy in 1884 when James was 31 and Annie 26. Annie was born in Fryers Creek in 1858. Her father, James Bear had been in Victoria since 1852 (he had been living Kent but was born in Berkshire) and had married Harriet Smith in 1857. Harriet was born in Somerset. Her parents do not appear to have come to Australia. A loose end that I have not yet tied down. James and Harriet had 6 children, one of which, Fredrick James (Fred) moved to Minnivale in WA around 1908. The other children appear to have largely stayed in Victoria.
James Bear had all of his life events on the Victorian goldfields after arriving in Victoria. It is not clear where James Lowis met Annie Bear but they appear to have spent several years in Melbourne before spending some time in the Victorian goldfields near Annie's family in the 1890's.
James and Annie moved from Victoria to South Africa around 1898. Ruth Ella Lowis, my grandmother was born in South Africa in 1899. I believe that at least one of James's brothers had immigrated to South Africa but I haven't been able to tie down which one. The family returned to Victoria in 1908.
Sometime around 1920 Ruth spent time on her Uncle's (Fred Bear) farm near Minnivale, WA where she met my grandfather George Stewart Bradley who was farming with his father near Dowerin. They were married at the homestead on Fred's farm in 1921.
I still have a great deal of work to do to make the "Notes" tags against key family members more readable and less of a "data dump". This task will be ongoing for some time. If anyone has more information, photos and/or corrections I would love to hear from you. To be on the safe side I have excluded Living People from the database. If you spot anyone who is still alive please let me know and I will remove them.