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Dr George NielsenDuring the mid 19th Century many Wendish emigrants from Upper and Lower Lusatia left Germany for a new life in Australia. Although most settled in South Australia, considerable numbers also lived in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Surprisingly, only 100 years later, few people in Australia had heard of the Wends, including their descendants, most of whom believed their ancestors had been German. In 1969/70, Dr George Nielsen of Concordia College, Illinois visited Australia on a Fulbright Research Grant and spent nine months conducting research into Wendish migration and settlement. Nielsen, a US Wend, grew up in Wendish communities in Texas. As a result of Nielsen's visit, during which he conducted a great deal of original research in church and government archives and contacted as many Australian Wends as possible, interest in Wendish family history was aroused and slowly grew. George Nielsen's extensive research in the US, Australia and Germany resulted in the publication in 1977 of his long awaited book In Search of a Home: The Wends (Sorbs) on the Australian and Texas Frontier. Nielsen's book followed Pastor Rupert Burger's timely feature article The Coming of The Wends which appeared in the 1976 Yearbook of the Lutheran Church of Australia. In Search of a Home added greatly to awareness of Australia's Wendish heritage by providing more information about the history and culture of Wends in Lusatia, their motives and methods of emigration from Germany and their settlements in Australia and Texas. Neilsen's book was revised and reprinted in 1989. An important project yet to be completed is the publication of the many Wendish emigrant letters discovered by George Nielsen and Trudla Malinkowa during the course of their research. These letters have now all been translated into English by Tom Darragh (a descendant of the Wends Andreas and Agneta Albert who settled at Gnadenthal in Western Victoria). Publication of these important and historic documents, which provide valuable eye witness accounts of Wendish emigration and settlement in Australia and the US, will enable family and other historians to obtain a much better understanding of this small but remarkable group of mid 19th Century European emigrants. |