Johann Philipp Will, son of Johann Wilhelm Will & Anna Dorothea Steinhausen, was baptized on 10 July 1729 in Hasselborn. On 15 December 1752, he married Anna Veronica Holland, daughter of Johann Konrad Holland, in the Lutheran Church in Groß-Rechtenbach, southeast of Wetzlar.
Johann Philipp Will and his wife have five known children: (1) Maria Dorothea (baptized 16 December 1753 in Groß-Rechtenbach); (2) Johannes (born 19 November 1755; baptized 23 November 1755 in Groß-Rechtenbach); (3) Kaspar (born in 1756); (4) Jeremias (born in 1758); and (5) Johann Heinrich (born in 1763).
Johann Philipp Wilt [sic], a miller (Müller), his wife Veronika, and children (Maria, age 15¼; Johann, age 13; Kaspar, age 11; Jeremias, age 9; Heinrich, age 3) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard the ship Die Jungfer Friederika under the command of Skipper Hans Christian Korsholm.
During the transport from Oranienbaum to the Volga German colonies, a new baby was born and she was given the name Maria Margaretha.
The Johann Philipp Will family arrived in Straub on 12 May 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 08.
Johann Philipp died before 1798. His wife Anna Veronica is recorded as a widow on the 1798 Straub census. She, her sons and grandsons are registered there in Households No. Sr31, Sr40, Sr43, and Sr50.
In the United States, some descendants of this family have changed the spelling to Wills.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 29.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 149.
- 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): Sr31, Sr40.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Nordost-Institut, Göttingen: 2008): 231.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #922.
Corina Hirt
Brent Mai