Historical Society find missing link

Warragul Historical Society has been thanked for completing a missing family history link by locating the grave site of the late Adelaide Engellener.

Max Engellener said his family had been searching for the resting place of his Great Grandmother Adelaide Engellener for the past 20 years. “Adelaide died in 1937, aged 37,” he said. “She had seven children and every Engellenner in Australia is related to her so it was very important for us to find her.

“I can highly recommend the Historical Society, their patience and advice was wonderful.”

Mr Engellener said while he always knew that Adelaide had been buried in Yarragon cemetery due to a notice obtained from births, deaths and marriages, the initial search did not go to plan.

“Iwas living in Melbourne at the time and did an initial search on the Yarragon cemetery website,” he said.

“It wasn’t listed in there and Ithought we’d hit a dead end.

“About 15 years ago we visited the cemetery but bushfires had been there, masonry had been pushed forward and it was a bit of a dark place.”

Max said the search for Adelaide was the missing link, having succesfully researched other anscestors of the family that had descended from Danish territory.

A significant breakthrough in the search began when Max moved to Warragul, and discovered the naturalisation papers of his Great Grandfather Ernest Christian Engellener from 1897.

“It’s been a really fun search actually,” he said.

“Our family moved to Warragul around 10 years ago and had no idea of the Warragul connection before we moved here, “It’s a sad story really. “He is the only Engellener to settle in Australia, so every Engellener in Australia is descended from him.

“They came out from the port of New York in 1897.

“His father was 23 when he died and Ernest was born in the same year.”

Ernest was buried in Coburg cemetery in 1927.

With the Yarragon cemetery fenced off and in good condition, renewed hope took Max to Warragul Historical Society.

He said Janice Swan had been particularly helpful in the search. “The Society were very helpful,” he said. “They found a land deed for 23 hectares in Darnum, and Dad had never seen that.”

Janice kept at it and snapped into her work, finding the grave site in just one week.

“We’re thrilled but the Society are as well,” Max said.

“The grave only had ‘our mother’ on it, so it closes a link for them as well.

“There’s another grave a couple of plots down that just has ‘baby’.

“We’re sure that they’re not related.”