Beck (Walter)

The Beck family of Gelnhaar has connections to several families that settled in the Volga German colony of Walter.

(1) Joachim Ritzel, son of Asmus and Anna Margaretha Ritzel, married on 9 May 1737 to Elisabetha Margaretha Vogel, the daughter of Hans Adam Vogel. They had at least one child, Julianna, who was born on 8 November 1739.  Julianna Ritzel married Johann Adam Vogel and immigrated to Russia settling in Walter [see the Vogel family].

Joachim Ritzel's wife Elisabetha Margaretha died and on 24 June 1750 he remarried to Julianna (surname illegible). They had at least one child, Magdalena, who was born 25 March 1753.  Joachim Ritzel died on 19 November 1756.

Joachim Ritzel's widow, Julianna, married Johann Heinrich Beck, son of Johann Erhard Beck, on 31 January 1759. They had at least two children: (1) Johannes, born 2 March 1759; and (2) Sibilla Barbara, born 13 February 1765.

Johann Heinrich & Julianna Beck arrived in the port at Oranienbaum on 15 September 1766 aboard the snowbrig Die Frau Dietrika under the command of Skipper Joachim Friedrich Luhn along with three children: (1) Magdalena [Ritzel], age 16; (2) Johannes, age 7½; and (3) Sibilla Barbara, age 1.

Johann Heinrich Beck, a farmer, his wife Julianna, and daughters (Magdalena [Ritzel], age 16; Sibilla, age 2) are recorded there on the 1767 census of Walter in Household No. 88. They had arrived there on 9 October 1767.

The 1767 census records that Johann Heinrich Beck came from the German village of Gelnhaar in the Isenburg region.

(2) Johann Heinrich Beck is also recorded on the baptismal register of Gelnhaar as the father of Wÿgand Beck, the illegitimate son of Susanna Müller, who had been born on 28 December 1758. The baptismal register also notes that Johann Heinrich denied this paternity. Nevertheless, Wÿgand used the surname Beck on later documents in Russia.

Susanna Müller, her husband Johann Nicolaus Wenzel, and her son Wÿgand [Beck] arrived in Russia on the same ship as Johann Heinrich Beck.

Nicolaus Wenzel, a craftsman (Handwerker), his wife Susanna, and son Weigand [Beck] (age 9) are recorded on the 1767 census of Walter in Household No. 91. They had arrived in Walter on 10 September 1767. [See Wenzel family.]

Weigand Beck and his family (including his mother and step-father) are recorded on the 1798 census of Walter in Household No. Wt046.

(3) Katharina Elisabeth Beck, daughter of Johann Erhard Beck and sister of the above mentioned Johann Heinrich, married Johann Konrad Link and immigrated to Russia, settling in Walter. [See Link family.]