Sarah Keiller

ARCH 2002 – Australian Historical Archaeology

Major Assignment – Option 1 Part B

Major Assignment

Option 1

Part B

Peter Doecke

ARCH 2002

Australian Historical Archaeology

Sarah Keiller

Aim:

To find out information about Peter Doecke from primary and secondary documents.

Methods:

At the beginning of this assignment all the information I had was the name Peter Doecke and that the town Peterborough was named after him. I began using the Digger software to look for Peter Doecke but I was not able to find anything on him in the Births (1998) or the Marriage (2001) records. In the death records I found three Peter Doeckes’ but I did not know which one he was. I looked up Peter Doecke in the Biographical Index of South Australians 1836 – 1885 (SAGHS, 1986). From this information I was then able to try and locate birth certificates, marriage certificates and death records. The Biographical Index of South Australians told me that I would not be able to find records of Peter and Marias births and marriage in Australia because they occurred in Germany. I tried BMD (Birth, Marriage and Death records) as recommended by a staff member from the South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society (Free BMD, 2009). I did a search for Peter Doecke with his date of birth and there were no results. I then typed into Google ‘Prussian Birth and Marriage records’ and from that I went to ‘Online German Genealogy Records and Database’ (Beine, 2009).I did a search in the Neidersachsen (Lower Saxony) but it was all in German (Beine, 2009). I was able to use the Digger software to find records of the deaths of Peter and his wife Marie Doecke (2006).In the South Australian Death Registrations 1842 – 1915, Marie was listed as Mary Doecke (Digger, 2006). I was only able to find Maria by using the date of death and the last name of Doecke as the criteria for the search (Digger, 2006). I then used Googleto search the name of the cemetery, Steinthal, given by the Biographical Index of South Australia (SAGHS, 1986). A site about German cemeteries in Australia came up in the search with Steinthal listed as one of these (Famlienarchiv, 2008).The Biographical Index of South Australians stated that the Doecke’s immigrated in 1851 on the ship ‘Helena’, from this information I went to the South Australian State Library website and did a search for the ‘Helena 1851’ (SAGHS, 1986).While at the Old System Title Section, I looked up Peter Doecke in the Registration of Deeds. I then began to research into the town of Petersborough using the South Australian Governments Place Names website, to find out if Peterborough was really named after Peter Doecke. I did another search in Google of Peterborough and the Australian Government site contained different information to the South Australian Government(Australian Government, 2009). I decided then to search for the local councils of Peterborough (The District Council of Peterborough, 2006). I then used the Land Services Groups PIERS online to find a map of Section 216 which was owned by Peter Doecke(Government of South Australia, 2001). I had to do a search in PIERS using the criteria of Sections, the number 216 and the place Yongala.

Results:

The Biographical Index of South Australians was used first to get some further details including: Peters parents were Michael and Maria nee Pilack and Peter was born on the 6 of February 1824 in Nechern, Saxony, Prussia; he died on the 29 of November 1906 in Bethal, South Australia and he is buried at the Steinthal cemetery in South Australia; Peter immigrated to Australia in 1851 on the Helena; his occupation is listed as a wheelwright, blacksmith and a farmer; and his religion was Lutheran (SAGHS, 1986). It also states that he was married on the 8 of November 1848 in Hockirck, Saxony, Prussia to Maria nee Felfe; her parents were Agnes nee bartusch; Maria was born on the 17 of July 1829 in Prauske, Saxony, Prussia; and she died on the 31 of May 1901 in Bethal, South Australia (SAGHS, 1986). Peter and Maria are listed in the Biographical Index of South Australians as having ten children together (1986):

J. Ernst (1850 – 1940), Christianne Ernestine Rohde (1853 – 1912), Anna Maria Graefe (1854 – 1954), Anna Emilie Kaufmann (1856 – 1922), Karolina Whme (1860 – 1964), J. Augt (1863), J. Herman (1864 – 1957), Maria Karolina Wenke, Braunack (1868 – 1964), Emma Lydia (1870), and Martha Lydia (1872 - 1963).

The highlighted names are of those who changed their name with marriage.

In the Death Records of South Australians, Peter was listed in the records as having one relative H H Rohde, which based on his list of children is a child of Christianne Ernestine Rohde (Digger, 2006).Maria’s on the other hand had no additional information.

Figure 1 shows Peters headstone which is written almost entirely in German (Familienarchiv, 2009). Maria Doeckes headstone is figure 2 and it also is in German (Familienarchiv, 2009). There is a memorial to Peter and Maria also found at the cemetery which is pictured in Figure 3 (Familienarchiv, 2009). In figure 2, Peter Doecke’s headstone and the memorial can be seen in the background (Familienarchiv, 2009).

The State Library has the passenger records from the ‘Helena’ which listed Peter Doecke and wife and child as passengers (Figure 4) (State Library of South Australia, 2009).The Helena departed from Hamburg with Captain Andressen and arrived in Port Adelaide on the 24 of December 1851(State Library of South Australia, 2009).

While at the Old System Title Section, I looked up Peter Doecke in the Registration of Deeds and found all the purchases of land that he made in Adelaide (Figure 5) (Government of South Australia).It states ‘Section ref hundred of Mannanarie’ and possibly Belalie and the co-ordinates of the hundreds (Government of South Australia).

Figure 5 – Peter Doecke’s land deeds.

(Government of South Australia)

According to the PlaceNames Online Peterborough was “Originally a private subdivision of sections 203, 211 and 216, laid put by Peter Doecke, who was living in Germany but was the original owner of the town site” (Government of South Australia, 2000).

The Australian Government, Heritage Places states that “In 1875 section 216, Hundred of Yongala, was selected by Peter Doecke who transferred the land to J H Koch in 1876” (2009).Peter had the intension of settling on the land but very soon changed his plans and transferred the land to Johann Heinich Koch who was the land manager (Australian Government, 2009).The name of the town was altered to Peterborough the English version of the German name, on the 10 of January 1918 (Government of South Australia, 2000).

Figure 6 shows the section 116 of Yongala that was purchased by Peter Doecke (Government of South Australia, 2001).

Figure 6 – Section 116 of Yongala.(Government of South Australia, 2001)

Discussion:

The limitations of using documents to research the histories of a person are that there are very limited types of documents that the general public can get access to these include: Births, Marriages, deaths and registration for the army during World War I and II. Peter had immigrated to Australia from Germany and thus documentation of the first 27 years of his life is missing. Also the last 30 years of his life Peter is not represented in the documentation until his death in 1906. I have no record of his schooling or his job during this time period. Once in Australia Peter is absent from the record until he buys land in 1875, so there is almost another 25 years missing. There is also an absence of the everyday life in the records for example the house that he lived in could provide an archaeologist with some artefacts from his or his children’s lives. The kinds of people that are more readily represented in documentation are people that are important to history, that have in any way changed things. I believe Peter to be one of these people because there is a large quantity of Government documents on him especially to do with Peterborough.People that have an everyday job that were born in Australia have the bare minimum in documentation. Family histories are a way of portraying the normal people in the documentation. While researching Peter Doecke in this assignment I came across many different types of businesses and programs that are based on researching your ancestors, these in the future with better technology may help to fill in some of the gaps in people’s lives. A major problem that I had in researching Peter Doecke was the language barrier, that the genealogy sites were in German and even his head stone was in German. If I were to excavate an archaeological site associated with this person, their story would differ from the documents. With the lack of archaeological sites found during the research of Peter Doecke although it is known that he lived in and was a resident of Bethel based on the details in the South Australian Deaths Registration (Digger, 2006). With some further research of Bethel then the house of Peter and Maria Doecke could be foundand an archaeological survey of the site conducted. I do think that the story of Peter Doecke would change with the excavation of the property that he once owned because there would be evidence of him as a family man he and his wife had nine more children while they were in Australia. With such a large family and inhabitants in the house still means that the house would still be in good enough condition to preserve the remains of his family a century after their occupancy. Peter was also a blacksmith; wheelwright and a farmer there may also be evidence on the site of backed earth from the smelting of Iron which would show up in the geophysics of the site.

There appears to be an error in the Biographical Index of South Australiansbecause it says that Martha Lydia (1872 - 1863) a daughter of Peter Doecke, the date is obviously wrong (SAGHS, 1986). In this source there is another Peter Doecke who was unmarried, born on the 13 of February 1799in Nechern, Saxony, Prussia. He also immigrated on the Helena in 1851 (SAGHS, 1986).The Biographical Index of South Australians as a source is a good place to start when looking for information on people but it is worth checking some of the data. As noted above there was a typo.When using all the Digger Programs you need to have some key information on the person before you can start this process otherwise it is difficult to narrow down the search to just one person.

At the Steinthal Cemetery there is a memorial, why is there a memorial to Peter and Maria Doecke, and who is it from? It could be from family members but the memorial was erected in 1979. It is more likely to be from a wider community because it acknowledges their migration from Germany and the Helena. It could be a way of acknowledging the role of Germans and other migrants in the South Australian colonies especially after World War I. The Familienarchiv web site is aimed toward Germans and a majority of the site was in German, the site could have been improved if there was a translation of the headstones (2009).

Peter and Maria Doecke immigrated to Australia in 1851 with their one year old son; they are listed on the passenger list as Docke which is missing the letter ‘e’ (State Library of South Australia, 2009). Were the three Doecke families related and travelled to the colony of South Australia as a group? I searched for an A. Doecke in the Biographical Index of South Australians and found that the A stands for Andeas and that his parents are the same as Peters (SAGHS, 1986). While the other Peter Doecke was from the same place as Peter, Nechern, Saxony, Prussia (SAGHS, 1986). The only problem with using this as a source of information about the voyage to Australia from Germany is that there is no date given for when the ship departed. From the passenger list there appears to be two other Doecke families that made the trip: there is the ‘P. Docke’ that was also listed in the Biographies of South Australians but he was unmarried and then there was another family listed as’ A. Docke, wife and 3 children’ (State Library of South Australia, 2009).

Peter Doecke’s occupation is listed in the Biographical Index of south Australians as a wheelwright, blacksmith and a farmer (SAGHS, 1986). Keller in ‘Cognition and tool use’ describes blacksmithing as a smith who works with iron in a forge (p. 33). A wheelwright is a highly specialised trade based on precision and make carts, wheels and agricultural instruments (Tarule, 2004, p. 42 and 77). It is unknown whether Peter was trained in these trades prior to his immigration to Australia. Although, Peter was aged 27 at the time of immigration so it is likely that he learned these trades in Germany. He went on to become a farmer in Australia.

Although figure 5 is not a very good duplicate, the areas in which Peter bought land (Government of South Australia). The names of these places may not be the same today as they are in the book, because after World War I residents of South Australia wanted to distance themselves from Germany.

There is a passage on the Heritage Places website that makes it seem as though Peter bought the land before he left Germany but he arrived in Australia in 1851 and the land is not written about until 1875 (Australian Government, 2009). The Government in 1875 had a policy to reduce the area of pastoral leases by dividing them into smaller agricultural holdings and this is when Peter bought the section 216 of the hundred of Yongala which was 200 hectares in size (Australian Government, 2009). Was this policy the catalyst for Australia going into an agricultural depression in 1879 that lasted until 1896 (Perren, 1995).After only owning the land for one year did Peter gave the land to J H Koch, this can be answered because is 1880 Koch was informed that a railway junction would occur on his newly subdivided land (Australian Government, 2009).

Peter Doecke bought at the time three sections of land, there was little information available about section 203 and 211, and could he have given a section to the two other Doecke families that emigrated from Germany with him?The town of Peterborough was named after Peter Doecke some people believe while others believe that it was named after the owner of the ‘Peters store’ the first general store in town (The District Council of Peterborough, 2006).

All of the information about Peters Doecke’s land has come from different levels of the government from the District council of Peterborough to the Australian Government. Each of these references gave different information about the town and the story of Peter Doecke. Having owned the land for about a year there is a wealth of information on this period. None of these sources mention houses on the land where he lived or even where he had lived both prior and after this period in his life. I thought that it was necessary to also have a representation of what the community believe to be the story of Petersborough.

The Land Services Group’s program PIERS Online was a useful tool in finding the details of the Section 116 (Government of South Australia, 2001). I was able to get a map of Section 116 of Yongala, as seen in figure 6. From this you can see the original lie of the land before this section became known as Peterborough.

References:

Australian Government, Heritage Place Details - Peterborough Urban Conservation Area, Accessed 6/6/09,

Beine J, 2009, Online German Genealogy Records & Databases, Accessed 1/6/09,

Digger, 1998, South Australian Births 1842 – 1906, Australasid.

Digger, Aug 2006, South Australian Death Registrations 1842 – 1915, Australasid.

Digger, Dec 2001, South Australian Marriage Registrations 1842 – 1916, Australasid.

Familienarchiv, 4/6/08, Steinthal Pioneer Cemetery - Peter Doecke, Accessed 6/6/09,

Free BMD, 2009, Free BMD Search, Accessed 30/5/09,

Government of South Australia, 2001, Land Services Group Online services: PIERS, Accessed 6/6/09,

Government of South Australia, 2000, PlaceNames Online: South Australian State Gazetteer, Accessed 1/6/09,

Government of South Australia, Registration of Deeds – Peter Doecke, Old System Selection.

Keller CM and JD Keller, 1996, Cognition and tool use: the blacksmith at work, Cambridge University Press, p.p 33.

Perren R, 1995, Agriculture in Depression 1870 – 1940, Cambridge University Press, p 7.

South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society Inc (SAGHS), 1986, Biographical Index of South Australians 1836 – 1885, Volume 1, Jill Statton (ed), p 70.

State Library of South Australia, 11/6/09, Passenger lists – 1851 Helena, Accessed 11/6/09,

Tarule R, 2004, The artisan of Ipswich: craftsmanship and community in colonial New England, JHU Press, p 42 and 77.

The district council of Peterborough, 31/1/2006, Tourism Information, Accessed 8/6/09,

Template for ARCH2002 student assignments:

Assignment type (drop down list): Person

*Project title (place/name/object):Peter Doecke

*Date range (site/person/history):1824 - 1906

*Student name, number and date of entry: Sarah Keiller, 2055914, 15/6/09

*Why I chose this assignment:I wanted to research a person after visiting the South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society. I'm from Victoria and I soon realised that I had no South Australian relatives. I asked my family if they had any South Australian relatives, my uncle Martin Boyer said he was related to a Peter Doecke from Peterborough in South Australia.

*Summary of major findings:I found that Peter Doecke was who Peterborough was named after and that he came over to Australia with two other Doecke families on the Helena in 1851.

*Summary of the limitations encountered:I found that there were large periods of time missing from the documentary record; some of this is to do with the fact that Peter Doecke immigrated to Australia and I do not have access to some of that information.

*Summary of the archaeological issues raised by this project:With the lack of archaeological sites found during the research of Peter Doecke although it is known that he lived in and was a resident of Bethel based on the details in the South Australian Deaths Registration (Digger, 2006). With some further research of Bethel then the house of Peter and Maria Doecke could be found and an archaeological survey of the site conducted With such a large family and inhabitants in the house still means that the house would still be in good enough condition to preserve the remains of his family a century after their occupancy. Peter was also a blacksmith; wheelwright and a farmer there may also be evidence on the site of backed earth from the smelting of Iron which would show up in the geophysics of the site.