Hi List, Thank you to all those kind people who replied to inquiry regarding diaries and journals from voyages to Australia around 1865. Even though some of them aren't for the exact time frame, it is a wonderful insight into the conditions that many of our families underwent. We were surprised to read that one of the families, the Windolf family emigrated on the ship Gauntlet which arrived in Moreton Bay on the 20th February 1878 and that the family came Indirect. They travelled from Hamburg to London on the "Martin" and then changed ships to the "Gauntlet". At that time it was more common for people to emigrate using the Direct shipping method from Hamburg or Bremen and it was only after 1880 that Indirect became the norm. Has anyone else found instances where before 1880, their family emigrated Indirect. We know that there were other instances where people emigrated from Germany to England and lived there for in some cases for several years before then emigrating to Australia. My Bergmann ancestor of Johann Carl Ludwig Voje/Bergmann left Mecklenburg between 1852 and 1858 and travelled to England. He met his future wife Anna Wellbrock in London where they married. She herself had emigrated from Hanover. They then emigrated with their two children in 1862 on the "Whirlwind". We have never been able to find the exact date of when either of them left Germany, but we know from looking at microfilms of the Parish Records from their relevant areas, that they were both confirmed in their birthplaces at the age of 14. Noel & Del Bergman