Johann Philipp Schwaab, son of Michael & Eva Schwaab, and Catharina Werran, daughter of Johannes & Susanna Werran, were married on 28 May 1754 in the Catholic church in Hofheim. The baptisms of six of their children are also recorded in the Hofheim parish records: (1) Balthasar Joseph, 19 April 1755; (2) Maria Anna, 13 February 1757; (3) Anna Maria, 1 October 1758; (4) Johann Georg, 19 September 1760; (5) Johannes, 7 July 1762; and (6) Heinrich, 12 June 1764.
Philipp Schwab, a farmer, and his family arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 21 July 1766 aboard the snow-brig Mercurius under the command of Skipper Christian Heinrich Abelßen.
Only father Philipp and son Johann Georg survived the journey from Oranienbaum to the Volga German colonies the following spring, settling in the colony of Sewald on 20 August 1767. They are recorded there on the 1767 Census in Household No. 29.
The widow of Philipp Schwab from Sewald and their children are recorded on the 1798 census living in the colony of Dehler in Households No. Dl01 and Dl06.
The 1767 census records that Philipp Schwab came from the German village of Hofheim in the Worms region.
- 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): Dl01, Dl06.
- Parish records of Hofheim - LDS Film No. 134031.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 173.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #3331.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai