Ambrosius STUDT 1832-?
Among the Nieder-Weiselerns who came to Melbourne on the Hamburg-based barque “Victoria” was Ambrosius ‘Stutt’ (an incorrect spelling for “Studt”). Unfortunately, occupations and ages are not noted on this passenger list and he is described only as an unmarried adult male – 15 years or over. No record of his marriage or of his death appears in the Victorian statistics.
In February 1858 the ship “Queen of the East”, ex Liverpool, arrived in Port Phillip with the final group of emigrants from Nieder-Weisel. Among them was Ambrosius Studt, 25, a farmer, with his wife, Anna Studt. The Studts were not indigenous to the village and, in the Family Books in Nieder-Weisel parish, only one reference occurs for the baptism of Ambrosius Studt – the eldest child of Adam and Margaretha (nee Bill) on 4th February 1832. This date is consistent with the age of the passenger on “Queen of the East”. The marriage register shows that he was married to Anna Maria Schimpf, born on 24th April 1836 to Johann Georg Schimpf and Anna Margaretha nee Hauser. Ambrosius and Anna Maria exchanged their vows in the parish church on 30th August 1857 and left the village soon after to board the ship that was to take them on a fourteen-week honeymoon voyage. The “Queen of the East” sailed from Liverpool on 16th November.
Ambrosius resumed mining when the newly-weds got to Victoria, suggesting that he must have made a reasonable success of his prospecting during his earlier venture. They lived in Ballarat for 5-6 years, and three children were born there, Jakob, Elisabetha and Catherine. Ambrosius later moved to the goldfields around Happy Valley and Springdallah to the southwest, where many of the Nieder-Weisel emigrants were mining. His younger brother Jakob had been in the colony since 1857; he was probably the sponsor for their first-born child. Jakob later took his family to Beaufort.
Two more children were born in 1864 and 1867 but they had lost the older son and two of the girls to childhood maladies. It may have been the loss of the younger children, which prompted Ambrosius and Anna Maria to return to Nieder-Weisel. This move seems to have suited the younger son, Adam; he lived there until his death on 19 May 1942.
View Ambrosius's Family Chart
