Jacob Müller, son of Ezechiel Müller & Anna Barbara Weinman, was born 31 May 1733 in Sprendlingen. His wife, Susanna Elz, daughter of Adam & Anna Katharina Elz, was born 4 November 1728 in Sprendlingen. They married there on 28 September 1755. They had four children whose births are recorded in the parish register of Sprendlingen: (1) Johann Bernhard, born 26 September 1756; (2) Anna Margaretha, born 29 August 1758; (3) Johann Wilhelm, born 13 September 1761; and (4) Anna Gertruda, born 31 May 1763.
Jakob Müller, a farmer, his wife Susanna, and children (Bernhard, age 12; Margaretha, age 9; Wilhelm, age 6; Gertrude, age 3) 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.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Kolb on 13 May 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 22 along with orphan Elisabeth Stellwagen.
Elisabeth Stellwagen was also born in Sprendlingen [see Stellwagen family], but no relationship is recorded between the Müller and Stellwagen families.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Jakob Müller came from the German region of Pfalz.
- 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.
- 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): Ko37.
- Parish records of Sprendlingen, Dekanat Wöllstein - Central Archive of the Evangelical Church in Hessen and Nassau (Archion.de)
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 1 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 1999): 391.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #988.
- Rauschenbach, Georg. Deutsche Kolonisten auf dem Weg von St. Petersburg nach Saratow: Transportlisten von 1766-1767 (Moscow: G.V. Rauschenbach, 2017): #0403.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai