George’s Journal

In Zilker Park, Austin, Texas stands the Philosopher’s Rock honoring three legends in the accumulation of Texas folklore, J. Frank Dobie, Walter Prescott Webb and Roy Bedichek. The Wendish Research Exchange of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society submits their own legend to the trio, George Nielsen.

View Dr. Nielsen’s notes regarding the Wends in Canada, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas

Excerpts from Emilie (Woelfel) Michalk’s "Reflections on my Life" by Edward Bernthal and George Nielsen

This article appeared in the October 2008 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) Emilie (Woelfel) Michalk was born in Thorndale on January 31, 1898, to Nicholas and Magdalena Woelfel. Eighty-six years later, she told Edward Bernthal the story of her life. Although her heritage was German, she married a Wend, […]

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Johann August Proft by Robert Proft and George Nielsen

This article appeared in the April 2012 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Historical Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) Even though Johann Kilian is the one pastor who is readily identified as a Wendish clergyman in America, there were at least seven more who fit the classification. These are Hermann Kilian, Andreas Schmidt, Johann Pallmer, Gottfried

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It Pays to Advertise – and to Read Ads by George Nielsen

This article appeared in the January 2015 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) Robert Wuchatsch, a researcher of and writer about the Australian Wends, found about a dozen notices placed in the classified section of the 1854 Budissiner Nachrichten several months prior to the departure of the Ben Nevis migrants.

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Two Routes to Liverpool by George Nielsen

This article appeared in the April 2011 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) On September 4, 1854, when the main body of Wendish migrants boarded the train at Bautzen, they did so without their pastor, Johann Kilian. Because someone lodged a charge against Kilian for inciting a person to emigrate,

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Johann Kilian as Father by George Nielsen

This article appeared in the January 2012 Newsletter of the Texas Wendish Heritage Society of Serbin, Texas. (www.texaswendish.org) When the Kilians departed for the journey to Texas they left behind the graves of three infant children in the church cemetery at Weigersdorf. Nathanael Martin, Tabitha Lydia, and Theresia Helena all died in infancy. Only two-year-old

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