Johann Nicolaus Küster, second child and only son of Philipp Küster & Anna Catharina Christ, was born 28 September 1721 in Seeheim. His father Philipp had been born 25 February 1692 and died in 1771, while his mother Anna Catharina was born in 1693 and died 19 November 1764.
Nicolaus Küster, a baker (Bäcker), married Catharina Margaretha Hofmann on 4 June 1750 in Seeheim. The couple had three children before leaving for Russia: (1) Maria Albertina, born in 1752, died in 1753; (2) Carl Ferdinand Eberhard, born in 1754; and (3) Friedrich Zacharias, born in 1759.
Nikolaus Kister, his wife Katharina Margaretha, and sons (Karl Ferdinand, age 13; Friedrich Zacharias, age 7) arrived from Lübeck at the port in Oranienbaum on 15 June 1766 aboard the Die Vergelte Weintraube under the command of skipper Anderson.
Nikolaus Kister, his wife Katharina Margaretha, and sons (Karl Ferdinand Eberhard, age 13; Friedrich Zacharias, age 8) are recorded on the 1767 census of Warenburg in Household No. 4 along with two orphaned sisters (Katharina Elisabeth, age 17; Jakobina, age 8) [surname Ickstadt]. The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Kister and Ickstadt families. They had settled in Warenburg on 12 May 1767.
Widower Nicolaus Kister is recorded on the 1798 census of Warenburg in Household No. Wr28 son Carl Ferdinand.
The 1767 census records that Nikolaus Kister came from the German village of Seeheim in the Darmstadt area.
- Kirschnick, Ulrich. Ortsfamilienbuch Seeheim-Jugenheim (Darmstadt, 1999).
- 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): Wr028.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 322.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #795.
Bill Pickelhaupt