Announcement: Early South Australian Naturalisations

Question

I have only just learned that South Australian naturalisations before 1848 had to be via Acts of legislation.

After a quick search of the SA legislation site I have found five Acts naming early "German" immigrants.

I have therefore created a free space page with links to each of the Acts, and have started to transcribe the names from each.

Everyone is invited to:

1. help with transcription,
2. link to profiles on WikiTree,
3. improve the page in any way.

Enjoy!

Comments

PS - I added a category to your page so it shows up under SA, Immigrants, and Colony of SA..  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:South_Australia%2C_Immigrants and https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Colony_of_South_Australia_%281836-1900%29

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Thanks!

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This list says something about the first ten years of European settlement in South Australia. Johannes (John) Menge was born in Steinau, Hessen. Most of the early German-speaking settlers arrived from Prussia. The 1839 list could show the most senior leaders.

Answer 1

Yes. I will add connections to Wikitree when I can.

P.S. Most immigrants to South Australia were recognised as British. The large group of immigrants from Prussia in 1838 was significant. Please note also that the Danish ship 'Zebra' was the first Alien (a.k.a. Non-British) flag-bearing-ship taking migrants to Port Adelaide.

Comments

Thanks Steve.

The Acts have titles such as "For the Naturalization of certain persons Natives of Germany" - so the varied nature of emigration locations is reduced to a generalisation.

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Chris,

There is a lot to look for in the lists of names. The majority would be from Königreich Preußen (Kingdom of Prussia) and I am looking at the Category:Migrants_from_Prussia_to_South_Australia

  
Another large group are immigrants left the mining regions of Königreich Hannover (Kingdom of Hanover). One name that I recognise is #40 in the 1847 list: Ludwig Dreyer, of the Burra Burra Mine, Smelting Master.

A smaller group left Großherzogtum Mecklenburg - Schwerin and first migrated to New Zealand between 1843 and 1845. The settlement floundered and I estimate that about a quarter of the migrants made their way to South Australia.

Answer 2

Wonderful, thanks Chris!  Sorry can't help with the transcriptions but will be looking out for some of my Prussians!

Comments

Thanks Veronica, there's only about 280 names left to transcribe. My brother has just transcribed 6000 names in an exciting new index we hope to reveal soon - so I can't complain.

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Veronica, there was a mob of Prussian descent that pledged allegiance to Queen Victoria and allegiance to the British Crown at Klemzig on July 24th 1843.

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Thanks Steve - are they online anywhere?

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Hmm. I am still looking for an online link. I am looking at the Heinrich family book. Trust me.
Or if you don't trust me there are copies in different libraries. ISBN 0 9595783 0 7. Page 27 refers to a partial list of the petitioners. I have seen a longer list. Unfortunately I have the memory of a goldfish.

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@Veronica. I am sure that I have seen an on-line link. There were 37 signatories. I can not recall whether I saw a link to a newspaper or government gazette.

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@Veronica, https://www.catalog.slsa.sa.gov.au/record=b1576958~S1

Answer 3

Great work!

Do you have any additional information on Carl Ludwig Wunderlich? Up until the late 19th century, the name "Wunderlich" was almost completely confined to two small geographic areas in Germany, one of which is known as the "Wittgensteiner Land". And there happens to be a "one place study" (if you want to call it that, given its scope is an entire region) for that.

A candidate identification would be Ludwig Karl Wunderlich (b.1813). That, by the way, would make him a distant cousin of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pia_Wunderlich.

There is more than one possible ID for the Daniel Wunderlich in your list. If you have further information about him, maybe that can be reduced to one.

Comments

Thanks Daniel.

There seem to be very few mentions in early SA records.

I have a Johann Carl WUNDERLICH, died 7 July 1854 at the age of 88 (birth 1766).

I have a Johann Gottlieb WINDERLICH married Johanne Beate Luise GELLERT on the 21 November 1851. They have at least three children: Johann Leopold (1852), Carl Friedrich (1853), and Friedrich Wilhelm (1855).

I see no Ludwig Karl or Daniel at this stage.

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I also have to acknowledge the good work by Steve Thomas.

He's done much of the linking to existing profiles.

Thanks Steve!

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Daniel,

I have looked previously and not found more about the Wunderlich family. The 1840 list of Naturalisations contains an unusually high number of immigrants from the Prussian province of Posen. I had assumed that is where the Wunderlich left from.
 

I have also just noticed Johanne Elenore Wunderlich, born 12 September 1802 at Gruenewald. Perhaps that was Grünewald, Westfalen, Preussen?

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That may indicate that "your" Wunderlichs actually did not come from the Wittgensteiner Land, but from the other region I mentioned, which was in the far east of modern day Germany.

About your Wunderlich from Gruenewald, given what else you wrote, I would assume that's this place, rather than any of the numerous places of that name in Westfalen (I count about a dozen places that are accurately described as "Grünewald, Westfalen, Preussen", which one did you mean?). This is exactly the region where that surname was most concentrated, apart from the Wittgensteiner Land.

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Thanks Daniel. The location you have sent fits quite well with the history of the other emigrants. The Wunderlich in the 1840 list migrated on the ship ''Catharina'' that arrived January 1839. 2/3 of the passengers were from the province of Posen, 1/3 were from Silesia.
 
Gruenewald is West of where my ancestors departed from around Grünberg (now Zielona Góra in Poland). Not many emigrants left Upper Lusatia around 1840. It still makes sense to me that the emigrants from Silesia travelled together.