Philipp Müller, son of Johann Konrad Müller & Anna Birgitta Hedrich, was baptized on 21 December 1727 in Niedergirmes, north of Wetzlar. He married there on 10 January 1755 to Anna Maria Walbracht, daughter of Johann Peter Walbracht & Anna Catharina Hopf of Naunheim. They have at least the following children, each born/baptized in Niedergirmes: (1) Katharina, born 18 September 1755; (2) Katharina Wilhelmina, born 5 September 1756; (3) Annlißbett, born 4 January 1762; and (4) Johann Philipp, born 19 July 1765.
Philipp Müller from Niedergirmes, Braunfels appears in the Solms-Braunfels Archives asking to be allowed to leave for Volga Russia in 1766.
Philipp Müller, a farmer, his wife Anna, and children (Katharina, age 12; Anna, age 5; Johann, age 1¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 21 July 1766 aboard a koff named Alette under the command of Skipper Wybe Hendricks.
They arrived at the Volga German colony of Kukkus on 26 June 1767, but by the time of the 1767 Census only Philipp and his daughter Katharina Wilhelmina remain alive in their family. Philipp's wife, Anna, had died there on 16 November 1767.
Daughter Wilhelmina is recorded on the 1798 Census in Kukkus in Household No. Kk10. She is married to Christian Pfeil.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Philipp Müller came from the German region of Braunfels.
There are no known surviving male liens of this Müller family among the Volga German colonies.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 32.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 459.
- 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): Kk10.
- Ortsfamilienbuch Niedergirmes [Online].
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 466.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): document no. 3587.
Rick Felsing
Brent Mai