Maryann (Clarkson) was born around 1833 at Annlaby, Yorshire, England. She married German born Phillip Zahnleiter in Adelaide in April 1851. By 1855 he was described as a 28 year old miner andthe family were on the Ballarat goldfields where their daughter Anne Charlotte was born on 5 March. Other children soon followed: George Clarkson Zahnleiter b. 1856 Buninyong and Jane b. 1858 Ballarat. Phillip Zahnleiter had emigrated on the three-masted barque San Francisco which had been built in Bjornberg, Sweden in 1846 and owned by J. C. Godeffroy & Sons.

The vessel had arrived in Adelaide on 14 October 1850 after leaving Hamburg around 15 June 1850. They were nearly shipwrecked running into a storm at Port Misery (Port Adelaide). Zahnleiter was part of a group of emigrants from the linen-producing Prussian province of Silesia.The Province of Silesia was created out of the Silesian territories acquired by Prussia in the Silesian Wars, as well as Upper Lusatia near Gorlitz, which was formerly part of the Kingdom of Saxony. As a Prussian province, Silesia became part of theGerman Empire during the Prussian-led unification of Germany in 1871.