Week 11 (Mar. 11-17): Achievement

The prompt ‘Achievement’ has started me thinking about all the various immigrant branches of my family have achieved in their new lives in Australia.

For whatever their reasons, my original Australian immigrant ancestors made a huge leap of faith to leave their homelands and travel to a distant country, most with little chance of returning if their new lives proved less than they hoped.

Some travelled singly, more in family groups, but for all it was a monumental decision.  In the colonial years of Australia, travel from Europe could take months, and for most visiting relatives ‘back home’ was out of the question.  They travelled in the knowledge they would likely never see those they left behind again. 

Communication was challenging as well.  My maternal ancestors all emigrated to Australia well before the telephone, so letters were the main form of communication, and it would take months for post to make its way across the globe.  Low literacy levels would also have complicated – or prevented – much communication.

My great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, was born in 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia.  The family first arrived in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.

I also have Irish ancestors who travelled singly to Australia in the 1840s, settling as farmers at Eurobin in northern Victoria.  They came out well before the potato famine to make new lives in the colony.

Then there is my German branch of the family tree.  Carl Friedrich Beseler, known in Australia as Frederick, was born around 1810 in Hanover, Germany.  He was a shoemaker in Germany and a farmer in Australia, arriving in Adelaide on 1 April 1848 with his wife and 5 children on the ship Pauline from Bremen, Germany.   The family lived in South Australia for 7 years before travelling overland to Victoria, where they settled near Ercildown.  Several members of the family are buried in Learmonth Cemetery. 

How brave were these people to make the leap into the unknown to travel to the other side of the world in search of better lives?  Establishing themselves and their families in their new homeland and building successful lives was an achievement indeed.

#52Ancestors