Christina KRAUSGRILL 1846-?
Christina was born on 11th March 1846 to the joiner Jakob Krausgrill and Christina nee Dern (of Lang-Gons, north of Nieder-Weisel). Two children were born to the couple before they were married; both of these failed to survive childhood, as did two who were born in wedlock. Christina and her young sister Elisabetha became the only children in the family to reach maturity. Christina’s god-mother was Christina Dern, who was probably a neice of her mother living in Lang-Gons.
Their father Jakob was a soldier before he was married; his love of adventure seems to have remained with him, as he was one of the group of three men from the village who blazed the trail to the Ballarat goldfields in 1853, leaving their families in the village. Perhaps Jakob’s wander-lust was a family trait – his brother Konrad made the long journey to Victoria five years later, taking his wife and children (including Anna Margaretha, who was born in the same year as Christina).
No record has been found of Christina’s voyage to Victoria but she was in Ballarat in 186O. She was confirmed in the Lutheran Church there – with her cousin Anna Margaretha Krausgrill and others – on Easter Day, 15th April.
This is the last record of Christina in Victorian statistics. Her uncle Konrad and his family went back to Germany in about 1863 and her cousin Anna Margaretha was married in San Fransisco in April 1864; it is likely that Christina went with them.
The widow Katharina Haub nee Dern, who was a sister of Christina’s mother, brought her 8 year old daughter Katharina junior to Victoria in 1856; each was later married in Ballarat. A child born to the mother was sponsored there in 1862 by her nephew, Christoph Dern, son of Heinrich.