Johannes Brasch [sic], son of Johannes Heinrich Brasch & Margaretha Engel, was baptized on 29 March 1731 in Orb. He married at St. Martin's Catholic Church in Orb on 11 April 1758 to Maria Susanna Ulrich, the daughter of Johann Ulrich & Anna Barbara Müller. Susanna had been born in Orb on 19 October 1730.
The baptisms of the following children born to Johannes Brasch [sic] & Susanna Ulrich are recorded in the parish register of St. Martins in Orb: (1) Johann Philipp, baptized 27 May 1757; (2) Anna Maria, baptized 6 October 1760; (3) Johannes, baptized 9 November 1763; and (4) Apollonia, baptized 20 August 1765.
Johann Braus [sic], a mason, his wife Susanna, and daughter Anna (age 6) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 19 July 1766 aboard a ship named Die Zwei Gebrüder (The Two Brothers) under the command of Skipper Nicolaus Peter Pinck.
Joh. Braus [sic], his wife Susanna, and daughter Anna Maria (age 7) are recorded on the list of colonists being transported from St. Petersburg to Saratov in 1767.
Johannes Pracht, a mason (Maurer), his wife Susanna Ulrich, and daughter Anna Maria (age 7) are recorded on the 1767 census of Katharinenstadt in Household No. 16. They had arrived in Katharinenstadt on 3 August 1767.
Johannes Prasch [sic], his wife Susanna née Ulrich, and daughter Anna Maria (age 16) are recorded on the 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] in Household No. 13.
Johannes Pracht and his family are recorded on the 1798 census of Katharinenstadt in Household No. Ka016.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Braus [sic] came from the German region of Mainz. The 1767 census records that he came from the German village of Orb in the Mainz region. The 1776 Katharinenstadt Land Register records that he came from the German village of Ort in the region of Mainz.
This surname is listed as Pracht in the records in Russia.
There are no known surviving male lines of this Pracht family among the Volga German colonies.
- 1776 Katharinenstadt Grundbuch [Land Register] (Household No. 13).
- 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): 547.
- Kertel, Karola. Ortsfamilienbuch Bad Orb. [Online]
- 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): Ka016.
- McGinnis, Sean. The Founding Families of Catharine, Kansas (2007).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 279.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #4255.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #5768-5770.
Sean McGinnis
Brent Mai