Johann Wilhelm Würtz, son of Johannes & Anna Margaretha Würtz of Bergheim, was born on 7 February 1743. Johann Wilhelm married Anna Maria Lochmann of Himbach on 17 August 1764. The parish register of Eckartshausen records the baptism of one of their children, Elisabeth, born 23 October 1764 in Bergheim.
Johann Wilhelm Würtz, his wife Anna, and daughter Elisabeth (age 2¼) arrived from Lübeck at the port of Oranienbaum on 29 July 1766 aboard a ship named Apollo under the command of Skipper Friedrich Detloff Mörenberg.
They settled in the Volga German colony of Norka on 15 August 1767 and are recorded there on the 1767 census in Household No. 53 along with the orphan Johann Heinrich Spahn. The 1767 census does not record a relationship between the Würtz and Spahn families, but Johann Heinrich Spahn's mother was also a Lochmann from the village of Himbach.
The Oranienbaum passenger list records that Johann Wilhelm Würtz is a farmer while the 1767 census records that he is a craftsman (Handwerker). Both documents record that he came from the German region of Isenburg.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Auswanderung deutscher Kolonisten nach Russland im Jahre 1766 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2019): 33.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Deutsche Kolonisten im Jahr 1766 in Oranienbaum und in den Siedlungsorten: Die Kuhlberg-Listen (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2024): 626.
- 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): Nr083.
- Parish register of Eckartshausen (including Langen-Bergheim, Wiedermus, Ronneburg, and Himbach) - LDS Films #1201827 and #1201828.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 3 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2005): 243.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): #5025.
Maggie Hein
Brent Mai