The family in Lautenthal

Time to do a little genealogy, and look at the composition of the Niewandt family in Lautenthal. Unfortunately it's not possible to post clear diagrams here, so we'll have to make do with a narrative.

Village life centred on the Lutheran church, a beautiful Baroque building built in the mid 1600s. The singing of hymns was an important part of worship, aided by an impressive organ, and membership of the choir was a privilege to be proud of.

The church registers trace the family from 1785, when Heinrich Christian Niewandt married Dorothea Elizabeth Buckbach. Heinrich gave his father's name as Christoph Niewandt, of Bad Grund, thus confirming his descent from the family there.

In 1818, his son, Johann Heinrich Christian Niewandt, married Johanne Friederike Elizabeth Richter, and they had at least four children -

Henriette, b. 1818
Christian Friedrich, b. 1820
Frederika, b. 1824
Heinrich Christian Andreas, b. 1830 (my great-grandfather)

the church organ

Johann's wife died in 1834, and he remarried in the same year to Dorothea Sauerbrei, who had a son, August Lauchs, from a previous marriage.
Johann died in 1846, leaving Dorothea  as head of the family.

In the same year, Friedrich married Henriette Dahle (nee Schubert) who had two daughters, Julie and Minna, from her first marriage.

Also living in Lautenthal were Johann's cousin Julius Niewandt, his  wife Johanne, and their son Andreas Conrad Martin Niewandt. (possibly there were other Niewandts too, but these are the immediate family)

In the 1840s, life in Lautenthal was becoming increasingly uncertain. Everywhere in the Harz, the mining industry was in decline. Some of the mines had been worked for over 700 years, and their great depth made ore extraction expensive. Imports of cheaper lead from South America caused prices to fall, putting many miners out of work. Everyone expected the mines to close in the next few years.

The mines were owned and operated by the government, and were fast becoming more of a liability than an asset. The miners were well looked after by the standards of the day - they had free medical attention, and pensions were paid to retired miners or their widows and orphans. Even if there was less work for them, miners were not usually discharged, but would receive an unemployment benefit. The amounts paid were very small, but the population was growing, and poor relief was an increasing drain on the government.
Clearly this situation could not continue, and the Hanoverian government began to consider assisted emigration as a solution.

(They did not move fast enough for some people, apparently; they burned their houses down so that they would have nowhere to live, and force the government to act. Not my family, as far as I know)

As the Niewandt family faced an uncertain future, the world outside the Harz was changing profoundly. The population of Europe was growing rapidly, and in Germany food production was not keeping pace with population growth. There was widespread unemployment, and mechanisation was making entire trades obsolete.

Across the seas, America had become an independent country, hungry for settlers, and many German people were already established there. Australia too was beginning to look past its beginnings as a convict dumping-ground, and realise the need for free settlers to develop the country’s potential.
The Niewandts would have been well aware of the opportunities in the New World – there is a record of a Heinrich Niewand living in Montgomery, New York State in 1793. All they needed was the means to get there.

photos from the website Paul-Gerhard-kirchengemeinde Lautenthal