Johannes Burkhardt, son of Andreas Burkhardt & Dorothea Klüber, was born 6 July 1732 in Oberhausen, a German village at that time located in the Free Noble Province of Ancient Knights. He was baptized in the neighboring village of Gersfeld the following day. He married in Gersfeld on 15 October 1756 to Margaretha Barthelmeß, daughter of Sebastian Barthelemeß & Elisabetha Wohlmacher. She had been born in Gersfeld on 8 March 1734.
Johann Burkhardt, a farmer, his wife Margaretha, and daughters (Margaretha, age 13; Dorothea, age 10; Anna, age 8; Barbara, age 5; Anna, age 2) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 14 September 1766 aboard a ship under the command of Skipper Reders.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Walter on 10 September 1767 and are recorded there in Household No. 16 on the 1767 census along with their oldest children.
Nicolaus Burkhardt, younger brother of Johannes, was born 19 January 1741 in Oberhausen. He arrived in Walter at the same time, and is recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 106.
- 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): Wt028, Wt029.
- Parish records for Gersfeld & Oberhausen.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 298, 318.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6447.
Doris Evans