Michael Heller, son of Jacob Heller, was married in Neumühl on 27 January 1756 to Catharina Wolsch, daughter of Vincent Wolsch & Barbara Heitz. She had been born in Neumühl on 1 February 1724.
Michael and Barbara had 4 children, each born in Neumühl and baptized in Kork: (1) Michael (born 2 October 1756 & baptized 3 October 1756, died 18 December 1758); (2) Barbara (born 3 March 1760 & baptized 5 March 1760); (3) a stillborn son (born/died 14 July 1762); and (4) Michael (born 9 August 1765 & baptized 11 August 1765).
Michael Heller, a farmer, his wife Katharina, and daughter Barbara (age 6) immigrated to Russia with a group of families from the same region that remained together and settled in Dietel. They arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 18 July 1766 on a Russian packet-boat named Svyatoi Nikolai (St. Nicholas) under the command of Midshipman Thomas McKenzie.
They settled in the colony of Dietel on 1 July 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 11.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Michael Heller came from the German region of Hanau.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Heller family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 31.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 330.
- 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): Dt33.
- Parish records of Kork (LDS Film No. 1189656, 1189657, 1189658, & 1189662).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 284.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #2450.
Alan R. Wambold
Brent Mai