Request any information my great grandfather - Karl Heinrich Lewan

    Hello everyone. I am new here and I live in Australia. Any assistance is gratefully appreciated.
    My great grandfather immigrated to Australia around the years of 1880 1881 or 1882.More likely 1881. I am lead to believe he boarded a ship out of Memel Prussia at this time. This ship may have docked at Adelaide South Australia.
    Through the records that I have found here in Australia his name has been noted as: Karl Heinrich Lewan, Carl Heinrich Lewan, Heinrich Carl Lewan and Heinrich Karl Lewan. That has my head spinning already from the different documents that I have found. Dates and other names on these documents coincide with it being the same person. It is believed that he was born around 1860 but no region has been stated.
    It is not known if he worked on the ship that he boarded or was a passenger. There is no record of him entering Australia but the details he gave at his Naturalisation ceremony here in Australia was that he came from Memel Prussia by ship.
    A name change is possible as there has it been mentioned a few time through out the family here. This name change was believed to be made during World War 1 because of persecution but there is not evidence of this so I have thought the name change may have came from the pronunciation of the letter W as I believe it is pronounced V in the languages from Europe and the pronunciation was changed to the English pronunciation. It is even possible though that he change the name as he entered Australia to Lewan.

    Hello Trevor,


    When going through the list that Anita linked to, please also consider names that begin with LI, LIE, LIV, LIEV, LIW, LIEW, such as for example Liewens, because following the pronunciation in English this name sounds very much like LEWANS or LEVANS.

    Hallo,



    I found some information about this family on ancestry.


    Carl Heinrich Lewan, * 26.02.1860 Memel, Prussia, + 27.05.1912 Mt Mary Bower, South Australia.


    He married Anna Amilie Habermann 28.10.1887 , Bethany, South Australia


    There is no further information about his parents, only about the ancestors of his wife and his children.


    Best wishes


    Mahelene