Christian Falk and Sarah Venables
Christian Casimir Falk was born on November 8th, 1842, in Hausen, Wurttemberg, in the south-west of Germany, close to the French and Swiss borders. The picture below shows Hausen, Wurttemberg.
Christian was the second child of (Georg) Martin Falk and (Maria) Christine Wehrbach. Martin, born in 1808, was the son of Johann Georg Falk and Maria Catherina Stozin, both from Baden-Wurttemberg. Martin was the only one of their eight children to emigrate from Germany. Christine Wehrbach was born in 1819, the daughter of George Wehrbach and Maria Scheppach.
Birth Record of Georg Martin Falk Marriage Record of Martin & Christine Woehrbach 
Martin and Christine had two sons, Jakob, born in 1841, and Christian. Elisabeth, born in 1844, may have also been their daughter or may have been the daughter of Martin’s second wife, Elisabeth Gerstle. Christine Falk died in 1847, aged 28 years. Martin married Elisabeth in 1849 and they had one son, Frederick Ludwig, born in 1857.
On July 12th, 1859, Martin and Elisabeth, and their 4 children boarded the PC Kinch at Hamburg. A total of 155 passengers departed Hamburg, with many passengers having signed contracts with Cornish & Bruce to work on the Melbourne to Sandhurst railway line. The passenger list shows a large number who listed their occupation as a stonemason, unlike Martin Falk who as a landman was planning to take up farming in Australia. The railway contracts were the cause of great turmoil when the new immigrants discovered their far inferior conditions compared to other employees.
The PC Kinch, a Danish barque, left Hamburg on July 12th with a cargo list that consisted predominantly of bricks, cigars, tobacco, wine, and spirits. The Kinch completed the journey to Adelaide via Rio de Janeiro on November 7th, 1859, a journey of 118 days. 112 stonemasons, all male, arrived unaccompanied, along with 4 families, including 19 children. Martin and Elisabeth do not appear to have had any more children. Elisabeth died in 1877 aged 56. Martin married Christine Frederich Koschel in 1879, a Polish-born, German-raised widow, whose four sons accompanied her to Australia, in 1878, after the death of their father. Martin became a naturalised Australian in 1883 and died that same year, aged 74.
Above a very illegible death certificate for Martin Falk, who appears to be buried in an unmarked plot somewhere in Wodonga Cemetery.
Sarah Venables was born on June 15, 1849, at Nangus near Gundagai, NSW, the only surviving child of John Venables and Mary Anne Homer. John Venables died when Sarah was 6 years old and her mother remarried James Marsh in 1856 and had 5 more children.
Sarah and Christian married at Moorwatha, NSW, on April 13, 1868, and they took up residence on their newly granted 40 acres at Bungowannah (below). Sarah was 18 and Christian 25.
Their first daughter, Mary Anne was born in 1869. Sarah’s mother Mary Ann died in January 1871 following the birth of the 5th of the Marsh children, David. Sarah and Christian’s second daughter Elizabeth was born in April 1871. Two more daughters followed, Louisa in 1872 and Dorothy in 1875 and then tragedy struck when Christian died of pneumonia in March 1877, four months before his son Charlie was born.
Sarah married Thomas Anderson in 1879 and had 5 more children, 3 sons, and 2 daughters, however one daughter died in infancy and the other died aged 8. By the time Sarah was 40 she had lost both parents, a husband, at least 2 siblings and 2 children. Sarah outlived her second husband and her daughter Elizabeth and died in 1935, aged 85, from severe burns.
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