I am Janis Haynes, an amateur historian, genealogist and contributor to articles on this Adelaide Hills LocalWiki.  My attention focus's on any and all things to do with the passengers of 'Zebra' which arrived here on the 29 December 1838.  I write on their marriages, homes, farm lands, movements, interactions and stories, and where possible I base it around the many photographs and records that are still available today in descendants homes.  

I am a descendant from the LIEBELT, STEINBORN, KUCHEL, LUBASCH, GREISER, families on the 'Zebra' which makes me related to a lot of the Hahndorf emigrants of 1839.  I was not raised Lutheran, nor did I take any interest or live anywhere near Hahndorf, or think I had a close link to German heritage.  My interest was initiated by cycling the route my german grandfather’s [Johann Carl Friedrich FÄHRMANN], 27th battalion [AIF} followed during World War 1, along the Western Front in Belgium and France, which led me to think about his ancestors.

Another long cycling trip took me [2018] down the Oder River and into accommodation at Mozow winery where I could visit the villages of the 'Zebra' folk.  Then I ‘found’ the ‘Friedrich Wilhelm Kanal’ and followed the Spree the Havel and the Elbe to Tangermünde where my great great grandfather [Johann Carl Friedrich FÄHRMANN, came from in 1849 and married the 5 year old LIEBELT of the ‘Zebra’ in Hahndorf.

Carl worked on the redgum timbers for the Old Hahndorf Mill [1854], the roof of St Michael's [1858-59] and St Paul's [1885] in Hahndorf.  It is possible that he was responsible as a 'Zimmerman' for building the Paechtown houses and other homes & barns that have survived to this day around Hahndorf.  Then I started to meet ‘cousins’ in and around Hahndorf who had collections of old photographs and then during covid I spent a year identifying some of the 300 photographs and their relationships to each other and then hundreds more came to my attention.  Hence my articles now include collections of photographs and other archival material belonging to cousins: John MUELLER, Beryl BENHAM, Glen LIEBELT, Lorraine KRAMM, Gwenda LUCAS, Alan REDDY & Kathryn SCHMEISS  and others who have generously allowed me to scan their items in their own homes, and then allowed me to share those images through my articles.  

I then started to work with several people including Lothar BRASSE, historian & heritage architect [he has sketched most Fachwerk houses in Australia and particularly in South Australia.]  While volunteering at the museum in the Hahndorf Academy I heard about author & researcher Tony Finnis, [Captain Finnis’s descendant].  Tony is also the administrator of the ‘Adelaide Hills LocalWiki’, which is a free site which Tony set up years ago to enable a community wiki based web-site for the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia and which forms part of the overall world-wide community based LocalWiki project.  The Adelaide Hills LocalWiki, apart from its community based role, includes comprehensive genealogical and historical based information related to the Adelaide Hills area and allows such data and research to be uploaded and shared.  I started working with Tony to present my own research in the form of articles on anything and everything to do with the ship ‘Zebra’, https://localwiki.org/adelaide-hills/Zebra-Project

I love working with Tony Finnis on this website because whatever story I am working on I can add and change it whenever I discover something new.  Tony has given me editing assistance and stresses that the content is always up to me, my pages are my own to creatively preserve the images that I can now share with you all.  The website is accessible to all to add information /stories/ research. You could use it for any of the work you do or have done in the past regarding the ‘Old Lutherans'.  I would be happy to assist you.

All of my articles are a work in progress, added to as I receive photographs or find other information.  I attribute all the collection of memorabilia to the current guardian, I only scan photographs in peoples homes, I don’t ‘collect’ anything other than information, evidence, identification of lands owned in Hahndorf & districts.

I have also have website for my none German ancestors 'https://rosecottagefamilyhistory.com'

In my previous life I was a Registered Nurse & Midwife, for over 43 years where I gained qualifications in, Coronary Care Nursing, Diploma of Teaching [Adults], Psychiatric Nursing, Graduate Diploma of Health Counselling, while finding employment in a variety of country hospitals, as well as in the neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Jerusalem, Israel and 2 years in rural nursing in Zimbabwe [Rhodesia] during the civil war.  

I live in Middleton, South Australia and am grateful that this new passion of mine has resulted in having friendships with FAEHRMANN relatives in Tangermünde, Germany and Polish friends near the Prussian villages of Nickern & Schönborn,  as well as the delightful guardians in and around Hahndorf who have shared their memorabilia. 

You can contact me on [email protected]