Texas Wendish Heritage Society to Host Program About Wends in Australia

The Texas Wendish Heritage Society will host a program at the Texas Wendish Heritage Museum on Thursday, November 5th at 5:30pm about Wends in Australia and Westgarthtown. The program will be presented by Robert Wuchatsch, President of the Wendish Heritage Society of Australia. The presentation will also include images and information about Wendish research in Germany.

Robert Wuchatsch is retired and lives at Pirron Yallock in South West Victoria, Australia. He worked for 35 years with the Australian Trade Commission, a government agency which promotes Australian exports. He has four children.

Robert was raised at Westgarthtown, an old German/Wendish farming settlement at Thomastown, 10 miles north of Melbourne. His research interests reflect his origins, his previous books being Westgarthtown: the German Settlement at Thomastown (1985); Historic Buildings of the Shire of Whittlesea (1985); Historic Views of the City of Whittlesea (1988); The Bloods; a History of the Lalor Football Club (1995); From Hamburg to Hobsons Bay: German Emigration to Port Phillip (Australia Felix) 1848-51 (1999); and Dan O’Brien: the Original Owner of Carbine: Australasia’s Forgotten Turf Legend (2008). He also contributed to A German Church in the Garden of God: Melbourne’s Trinity Lutheran Church 1853-2003 (2004).

Robert’s interest in his Wendish ancestry began when George Neilsen visited Australia in 1969/70 to research Wends there. Robert is descended from Johann and Magdalena Wuchatsch from Särka near Kotitz, who emigrated in 1849. He has visited Lusatia seven times since 1987, staying with Wuchatsch relatives, who had previously been unaware they had relatives outside Germany.

In 2015, Robert was re-elected president of the Wendish Heritage Society Australia, having previously served in that role from 1994-2003.

Program is open to the public with no admission fee.