FoLA Meeting March 2025

FoLA AGM (7pm)

The Biar family divided: Emigrants on two continents (Geoff Saegenschnitter) (7.30pm)

While researching and publishing the Biar family history in Australia in 1971, Geoff Saegenschnitter discovered that the Biar family were of Wendish origin rather than German, and that two Biar brothers left their home in Groditz, Saxony within two months of each other in 1854. One went to Texas USA and the other to South Australia, never to see each other again. Quite by accident, 41 letters from SA to the Biar family in Texas from 1881 to 1926 to successive generations of the Biar family were found and have been translated.

Today, Geoff maintains contact with the family in Australia, USA and Germany and is a member of the Wendish Heritage societies in SA, Victoria and Texas, and his presentation will focus on all these aspects.

Geoff is the current Chairman of FoLA and author of a number of family and local history books.