Johann Philipp Bessinger was born in 1721 in Raibach. He married to Anna Apollonia Gehrisch on 03 May 1753 in the Lutheran Church in Reichenbach, northeast of Bensheim. She was a daughter of Anton Gehrisch (born in 1731).Johann Philipp and his wife had four children, each baptized in Reichenbach: (1) Andreas (baptized 08 December 1754); (2) Katharina (baptized 10 June 1757); (3) Johann Georg (baptized 12 September 1761); and (4) Johann Peter (baptized 28 July 1765).
Johann Bessinger, a farmer, his wife Anna, and children (Andreas, age 11; Katharina, age 9; Philipp, age 11) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard the Russian galliot named Kronverk under the command of Lieutenant Dmitry Ilyin.
Youngest son, Johann Peter, was not travelling with them, so must have died before they boarded the ship. The Bessinger family arrived in Stahl am Tarlyk on 5 September 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 45.
At some point Georg moved to Anton, because in 1788, Georg Bessinger and his wife are recorded as moving back from Moor to Stahl am Tarlyk.
Johann Philipp died before 1798. His sons Andreas and Johann Georg are recorded on the 1798 Stahl am Tarlyk census in Households No. St49 & St14.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999): St14, St49, Mv1769.
- Parish register of Reichenbach.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Nordost-Institut, Göttingen: 2008): 214.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2757.
Corina Hirt
Brent Mai