Did you know my grandmother, Juliane Christiane Mann (nee Riedel) was born in Prussia? She was born on 14 September 1860 in Niebusch in Schlesien (in German) or Niwiska in Silesia (in Polish) to Johann August Riedel and his wife, Anna Rosina (nee Stephan).

Niebusch was in Kreis Freystadt in the district of Liegnitz in Schlesien. In the village around 1790, there were 399 people living in 65 farms.

Niwiska, the Polish name for Niebusch, is a village in modern-day Poland located in Lubuskie, in the Zielona Góra district.

Christiane was the sixth child born and the last in Prussia.

She left Hamburg on 14 May 1862 with her parents and 4 sisters on the San Francisco in steerage and arrived in Port Adelaide on 6 October 1862. More details and the passenger list can be found at http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/australia/sanfrancisco1862.shtml.

Steerage is the lower deck of a ship, where the cargo is stored above the closed hold. In the late 19th and early 20th century, steamship steerage decks were used to provide the lowest cost and lowest class of travel, such as for European immigrants to Australia and North America and Chinese emigrants. With limited privacy and security, inadequate sanitary conditions, and poor food, steerage was often decried as inhumane, and was eventually replaced on ocean liners with “third class” cabins. More details at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steerage_(deck).

Can you imagine what it was like travelling with a toddler (and other children) in crowded conditions for over 4 months?

Although I am second generation born in Australia through the Riedel line, I am up to the fourth generation on four of the other lines, Kuchel, Klenke, Gallasch and Hirte, my Hahndorf connections.