Note: This post is
part of a challenge set by genealogist blogger Amy Johnson Crow on her No StoryToo Small blog.
Helena Lindner is my 4th great Grandmother. She was born in either Germany or Prussia about 1834.
I have not found her immigration records yet.
Helena’s
marriage certificate lists her parents as Johanna Zobel & Gottfried Lindner,
a digger. She was married in her home at
Creswick Creek near Ballarat, VIC on 19 May 1857 to John Heinrich von Tien, the
son of Heinrich von Tien & Dore Lutsch. The marriage certificate is the
only record that states her husband’s name was John Heinrich. On the declaration section of the register,
he calls himself Heinrich Von Tien. Helena’s death certificate
states her husband’s name is Charles Vonthein and his own death certificate
states his name is Carl Vonthein.
On the marriage certificate, Charles / Carl / John
Heinrich’s occupation is listed as a digger.
The officiating minister is John Peter Niquet, who I know married many
of my Lutherans ancestors / relatives in South
Australia. The
witnesses to the marriage are J Hermann Roster & Auguste Lehmann.
Helena
died 5 March, 1878 in Albury, NSW. The
witnesses at her funeral were Christoph Westendorf & Johann Gottlieb Kalms
(her daughter’s father-in-law).
This ancestor is special to me for three reasons:
- First,
she is my most distant direct maternal ancestor. We share the same mDNA.
- Second,
her name, Helena,
has been passed down my maternal line each generation, alternating between
first & middle names. Helena is my middle
name, my mother’s first name, her mother’s middle name, & so on.
- Thirdly,
she is a puzzle because I can’t seem to locate her before her
marriage. I can’t find her immigration
records to Australia or
her birth in Prussia / Germany. From her death certificate I know that
she was in NSW for 20 years. Before
this she was in Creswick Creek, a goldfield town in Victoria. I can only guess that she
immigrated form Germany
to Victoria or from Adelaide, via Creswick Creek, to NSW.
I would love to know definitively that my Helena Lindner is
the right Helena. I would also like to know whether I have her correct parents & where in Germany / Prussia she was born.