Andreas Pfaffenroth was born in Berstadt on 2 December 1732. Andreas's grandfather Franz Pfaffenroth was a teacher in the village of Geiss-Nidda during the Thirty Years' War. The family's ancestry can be traced to the nearby village of Berstadt.
Andreas Pfaffenroht [sic], a linen weaver (Leinweber) from the area of Darmstadt, & Anna Cathar. Birl from the area of Darmstadt were married on 1 August 1766 in Pastor Bruns's house in Lübeck. The marriage is recorded in the parish register of St. Jacob's Lutheran Church in Lübeck.
Andreas and his wife Anna arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 14 September 1766 aboard a ship under the command of Skipper Reders.
Widower Andreas Pfaffenroth is recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Andreas Pfaffenroth married widow Anna Elisabeth Mohr with whom he was travelling from St. Petersburg to Saratov. They and her children (Katharina, age 13; Anna Maria, age 11; Johann Konrad, age 8) are recorded on the 1767 census of Yagodnaya in Household No. 41. They had settled in Yagodnaya Polyana on 16 September 1767.
Widow Elisabeth Pfaffenroth and her family are recorded on the 1798 census of Yagodnaya Polyana in Household No. Yp33. Another son is believed to be recorded there in Household No. Yp06.
Konrad Pfaffenroth from Yagodnaya Polyana and his family are recorded on the 1857 census of Neu-Yagodnaya-Polyana.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Andreas Pfaffenroth came from the German region of Darmstadt. The 1767 census records that he came from the region of Nidda.
There are numerous historical and contemporary spellings of this surname.
- 1857 Neu-Yagodnaya-Polyana Census.
- 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): Yp06, Yp33.
- Mai, Brent Alan and Dona Reeves-Marquardt, German Migration to the Russian Volga (1764-1767) (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2003): #275.
- Parish register of Berstadt.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 183.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #6521.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #8395-8398, #8419.
Reinhold Zielke
Karl-Heinz Reinhard
Walter Stoll
Brent Mai