Passengers on the Ben Nevis and Their Familes | A Voyage of Hopes and Dreams!

Wendish Research Exchange
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Passengers on the Ben Nevis and Their Families
by Weldon Mersiovsky

"Passengers on the Ben Nevis and Their Families" has been an effort to decipher the document that has come to be known as the Ben Nevis List and put forth the most complete and accurate information about the Wendish families aboard the Ben Nevis. It also includes those immigrants and immigrant families who came to Texas directly before and after the Ben Nevis until 1861, when migration stopped during the American Civil War. The purpose of this work is to enable those interested in their roots to connect to their immigrant ancestor and hopefully make the leap to the appropriate town in Germany so they can continue their research.

Introduction by George R. Nielsen

This excellent resource book, published in March of 2016, is available at/from the Texas Wendish Heritage Museum in Serbin, Texas. Call for more information: 979-366-2441. Also available from Amazon.com.

There are also several informative articles here on the Wendish Research Exchange regarding the Ben Nevis. Simply return to the Home Page, type Ben Nevis into the search box in the upper-right portion of the page, click GO and learn more about this vessel, its voyage, and those whose lives were shaped by it.

A Voyage of Hopes and Dreams
by Frank Wissel

"A Voyage of Hopes and Dreams" is a work of historical fiction, written by Frank Wissel. The story is told by 18 year old Andreas recalling the trip he took 12 years prior with his family and other German Wendish emigrants seeking a new life in Texas. It chronicles the 1853 trip from the day that Andreas left his home by wagon with his family and then rode the train from Bautzen to Bremen. At Bremen, Andreas and his family, and the rest of the 35 Wends, booked passage on a brig named the Reform to take them from Bremen to Galveston, Texas. On their voyage the Wends experienced joy, heartache and tragedy. The joy was the birth of Agnes, Andreas' sister. The heartache was the death of a 1 year old boy from one of the other Wendish families. The tragedy was that the Reform never made it to Texas. It ran aground off the coast of Cuba. All of the passengers and crew members survived, and with the generosity and help of many people, they eventually made it to Galveston, by way of New Orleans.

Published in March of 2016, this fascinating book is available from Amazon.com. Read more in Mr. Wissel's Wendish Blog Frank's Findings.

A Practical Grammar of Upper Sorbian (Wendish)
By Charles Wukasch

Preface: In the preface to the first edition, I stated that I hoped the grammar would serve at least two purposes:1) as a self-teaching grammar for those people of Sorbian (Wendish) descent who wished to learn something about the language; 2) as a grammar for a continuing education course in Upper Sorbian or for a course in Upper Sorbian given in a department of Slavic languages. I also added the caveat that my introductory grammar was not intended to substitute for any of the more detailed grammars by native speakers of Upper Sorbian. The English equivalents which are the equivalent of the Upper Sorbian letters of the alphabet are sometimes rough equivalents. The best thing, of course, is to ask a native speaker how to pronounce a word. However, given that that is not always feasible, an approximation of a sound is better than nothing. I was flattered that the first edition was favorably reviewed in 1994 by the Slavic and East European Journal, one of the leading journals devoted to Slavic and Eastern European studies. I hope that this edition will also be a contribution to the field of Sorbian studies. If anyone has questions about the book, notices typos, etc., please feel free to contact me at accprof@att.net or through the Texas Wendish Heritage Society Press, 1011 County Road 212, Giddings, TX 78942. I wish to dedicate this work to the Texas Wends with whom I did field work on various occasions years ago: Carl and Martin Miertschin, Herman Bigon, and Ben Mitschke. They had pride in their Wendish background and continued to use the Wendish language until their death.