Johann Valentin Thorn was born on 26 April 1733 in Falkenstein.
There are two Thorn families that arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard a ship named Die Perle under the command of Skipper Gerhardt Hermann Thomsen. Their relationship to each other, if any, needs further research.
(1) Valentin Thorn, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, and children (Margaretha, age 6; Johann [Jakob], age 3; Maria, age ½) arrived in Oranienbaum.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Kolb on 13 May 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 3.
Heinrich Jakob Dorn (age 36) is recorded on the 1798 census of Walter in Household No. Wt076. He is believed to be the 3-year-old Jakob who arrived in Oranienbaum.
Descendants of this family also moved to the colony of Frank.
(2) Widower Michael Thorn, a farmer, and his daughter Anna (age 28) arrived in Oranienbaum.
This surname is also spelled as Dorn in some records.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Valentin Thorn came from the German region of Pfalz and that Michael Thorn came from the German region of Isenburg.
- 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): 157, 161.
- 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): Ko31, Wt076.
- Parish records of Sankt Alban, Rockenhausen.
- Parish records of Sankt Alban (LDS Film #193160).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 386.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #985, #1016.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #0424.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai