Johann Caspar Oberheim, son of Christoph Oberheim, was baptized on 3 August 1731 in Gedern. He married in Gedern on 13 October 1763 to Elisabeth Landmann, daughter of Johann Georg Landmann and widow of Johannes Müller, who had died on 12 October 1752. Caspar Oberheim and the widow Müller had had a son before they were married (Johann Christoph, born 4 September 1756, baptized 5 September 1756), and had two additional children following their marriage: (1) Johannes, born 23 July 1764, baptized 25 July 1764, died 29 July 1764; and (2) Carl, born 10 November 1765, baptized 12 November 1765.
By her previous husband, Johannes Müller, Elisabeth Landmann had three children whose baptisms are recorded in the Gedern parish register: (1) Johann Christoph Müller, born 24 March 1747, baptized 26 March 1747; (2) Johann Phillip Müller, born 8 December 1748, baptized 10 December 1748; and (3) Anna Maria, born 23 July 1751, baptized 25 July 1751.
Kaspar Oberheim, a farmer, his wife Elisabeth, children (Johann, age 20; Christoph, age 10¼), and [step-]children (Philipp [Müller], age 19; Anna [Müller], age 15) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 9 June 1766 aboard an English frigate named Love & Unity under the command of Skipper Thomas Fairfax.
They arrived in the Volga German colony of Reinwald on 24 June 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Households No. 56 and 59.
The widow and daughter of Christoph Oberheim is recorded on the 1798 census of Reinwald in Household No. Rw49.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Kaspar Oberheim came from the German region of Stolberg.
There are no known surviving male lines of this family among the Volga German colonies.
- 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): 232.
- 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): Rw29.
- Parish register of Gedern.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 44 & 45.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766 (Saratov: State Technical University, 2010): #1653.
Victor 2 & Galena from the Forum of Wolgadeutsche.net
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai