UNFORTUNATELY, I don't know why my European forefathers left their homeland to make the long journey to Australia. It's puzzling to contemplate how and why people undertook such an dramatic change. While they must have had little money, what did such a journey cost? If one had a small security in the 1870s, how was it converted into a value that would withstand a journey to a distant country? Did people use gold? Were there money changers in Hamburg and other major ports?

What concept did they have of the world they were venturing into? Many theories have been offered for their exodus, including: opportunism, fleeing from war, religious persecution, etc. Perhaps, the answer was even simpler.

In Owen Mützelburg's book How To Trace Your German Ancestors (Hale and Iremonger, 1989:54) the author, a historian and professional genealogist, outlines many little-known aspects of German migration to Australia.

Mützelburg says that in the 1860s the Queensland Government recruited a German merchant named Johann Heussler to encourage German people to migrate to Queensland. Heussler traveled by a train through Pomeranian West Prussia, Posen and Brandenburg offering various incentives (including land grants and assisted passage) in a campaign that eventually attracted several thousand German settlers to Australia during the following decade.