Week 19 (May 7-13) A Question the Records Can't Answer - #52Ancestors

While the records we find are vital to our family history research, there are many questions that the records cannot answer.

The records cannot tell us why our ancestors make many of the choices they made.  Why did they choose a particular profession?  Why did they marry their partners?  How did they choose the names of their children?  Why did they move, divorce, change their name, enlist in the armed forces.
Several of my ancestors made to momentous decision to emigrate to Australia.  While the records can tell us when they emigrated, and history might provide some hints as to why, the records cannot fill in the whole picture.

My great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, was born in Bristol, England or possibly Launceston, Tasmania around 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia.  James’s younger sister Annie Amelia Clark was born 31 March 1857 in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.  Why did they leave England and move to the other side of the world?

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 on the ship Pauline from Bremen, Germany.  Passengers listed were Frederick Beseler, Shoemaker, Mrs Beseler and 5 children.  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.  Why did they leave Germany for a country where they didn't even speak the language?

I would love to know what prompted these families, with young children in tow, to pack up and move halfway around the world, settle in one state of Australia, then pack up and move again several years later. 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 to their homeland if their new lives proved less than they hoped.  And the records can't answer why.